cm   BONO? 

OR 

WHAT  SHALL   IT  PROFIT? 


•       • 


GUI  BONO? 

OR 

WHAT    SHALL    IT    PROFIT?" 


A   GENTLE   PHILOSOPHY   FOR 
THOSE   WHO   DOUBT 


BY 

HARWOOD   HUNTINGTON 

A.B„  CCM  HONORE   IN  SCIENCE,  TRINITY  COLLEGE,   HARTFORD 

PH.D.,  MAJOR  IN  SCIENCE,  MINOR  IN  LAW,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY,  NEW  YORK 

ADMITTED  TO  THE  CONNECTICUT  BAR 

ORDAINED  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  ST.  JOHN  THE   DIVINE,  NEW  YORK 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30TH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
LONDON,  BOMBAY,  AND    CALCUTTA 

1912 


C3f?iJS 
H9 


%'.f^,  ^1 


COPTBIOHT,  1912,  BT 

LONGMANS.  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


I  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Co. 
New  York 


TO 

MY  FATHER 

THE   REVEREND  JOHN    TAYLOR    HUNTINGTON,  D.D. 

AND   IN    MEMORY    OF 

HIS    FATHEil,  AND    HIS    GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

MINISTERS    OF 

THE   MASTER 


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CONTENTS 

PAOB 

Foreword ix 

Chapter  I.    What  is  the  World  For? 3 

The  answer  to  the  question,  "Cui  Bono  f "  to  be 
judged  by  the  counter-query,  "  Does  the  reply 
or  method  produce  pessimism  or  peace?" 

(a)  History  shows  that   the   ancient  nations 

trended  towards  pessimism. 

(b)  The  world-religions,  other  than  Christian- 

ity, did  not  give  men  peace,  but  pessi- 
mism. 

(c)  The  histories  of  the  different  philosophies 

developed  pessimism. 

(d)  The  "Seeing  is  believing  "idea.  Definition 

of  faith,  religion,  Christianity. 

Chapter  II.    Difficulties 29 

DiflBculties  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Atonement, 
the  Trinity;  and  miracles. 

Chapter  III.    Christianity  the  Civilizer 63 

Christianity  produces  civiUzation  in  the  nation, 
preserves  the  family,  gives  peace  to  the  individual. 

Chapter  IV.    Evolution  of  Soul 79 

Whence  cometh  evil?    Its  use  is  to  awaken  the  soul 
of  man.     Biology  of  the  soul.     Evolution  of  the 
soul.    Strengthening  of  the  soul  by  (a)  obedience;     ' 
(b)  prayer;   (c)  consecration, 
vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAOE 

Chapter  V.    Man  Ensouled 104 

(A)  Soul  and  soul  only  can  perceive  God.  (B)  Soul 
and  soul  only  can  hear  God  speak  in  (i)  the  laws 
of  nature;  (ii)  the  voice  of  circumstance;  (iii)  the 
voice  of  friends;  (iv)  the  voice  of  the  Master 

Chapter  VI.    Christianity  Transcendent 123 

Christianity  removes  all  fear;  it  answers  the  query, 
"Does  God  Care?"  Christianity  alone  gives 
cheer,  happiness,  peace;  it  raises  man  from  the 
sense-plane  to  the  soul-plane.  Christianity  and 
Christianity  alone  answers  rightly  the  riddle  of 
the  universe,  "Cui  Bonof" 


FOREWORD 

The  object  of  this  brochure  is  usefulness  and 
service  in  re-stating  some  of  the  eternal  verities 
which  condition  peace — soul-peace.  Whatever 
there  is  of  good  in  it  is  not  original,  and  the  one 
desire  and  aim  is  to  present  in  the  clearest,  sim- 
plest way  some  of  the  essential  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, of  which  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
people  are  trustees.  It  does  not  pretend  to  teach 
an  academic  theology,  but  the  Christian  religion. 
Theological  and  academic  terms  are  avoided  as 
much  as  possible,  and  common  parlance  is 
employed. 

There  never  was  a  time  when  thoughtful  men 
and  women  sought  so  eagerly  after  truth  as  now. 
It  has  been  said  that  this  was  an  Age  of  Doubt, 
and  others  have  said  that  it  was  an  Age  of  Facts: 
it  is  more — it  is  the  best  age  yet  in  which  to  live, 
because  the  rush  for  material  things  is  abating, 
a  truer  and  saner  vision  of  life  is  dawning,  and 
alongside  of  an  educational-aristocracy,  a  soul- 
aristocracy  is  being  evolved.  With  the  increase 
of  wealth  there  has  come  a  conviction  that  after 


X  FOREWORD 

a  certain  amount  of  money,  it  is  better  for  a 
family  to  give  time  to  culture  in  science,  letters, 
fine  arts  and  religion;  this  new  aristocracy  "sees 
life  whole";  it  sees  that  we  are  only  in  the  ante- 
chamber of  real  life;  that  we  are  in  the  primary 
school  of  the  life  that  is  to  be,  of  which  this  stage 
is  the  preliminary  grade.  Examples  of  this  new 
educational  and  soul-aristocracy  can  be  found 
all  over  the  world.  It  is  the  evolution  of  leisure 
folk  into  a  useful  class. 

No  men  see  this  more  clearly  than  the  so- 
called  successful  class.  An  incident  will  illus- 
trate what  is  meant.  A  successful  man,  but  of 
the  unchurched  masses,  came  once  to  a  rector, 
saying,  ''I  myself  am  unable  to  believe  the 
Church's  doctrines,  but  I  want  my  children  in- 
structed, because  I  wish  for  them  a  peace  which 
I  have  never  had."  The  children  were  taught 
carefully,  and  when  the  time  came  for  their  con- 
firmation, the  father  came  forward  and  joined 
the  Church  with  them.  This  incident  without 
doubt  could  be  paralleled  in  many  parishes  of 
the  home  or  foreign  field.  "Successful"  men 
realize  that  something  is  wanting  to  complete 
their  lives:  that  mere  pecuniary  success  is  insuffi- 
cient in  some  way:  they  feel  soul  neglect.  This 
lack  is  not  supplied  by  education,  nor  wealth. 


FOREWORD  xi 

nor  position  alone.  Our  prayerless  public  educa- 
tional system  has  been  estopped  in  supplying 
even  such  an  ethical  training  as  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments; wealth  only  too  often  brings  about  a 
metallization  of  the  soul,  and  our  thoughtful 
men  are  coming  to  see  that  there  is  something 
above  and  beyond  all  education,  wealth  and  posi- 
tion. The  genius  of  the  Age  is  in  a  state  of  spirit- 
ual unrest,  and  each  individual  soul,  feeling  after 
God,  if  haply  it  might  find  Him,  is  finding  Him 
within  its  own  self.  It  is  conscious  that  there 
is  something  immortal  about  itself,  like  the 
Frenchman  who  said,  "You  may  not  be  immortal, 
but  I  am."  The  preacher-prophet  said,  "He 
hath  set  eternity  in  their  hearts." 

Some  of  the  arguments  of  former  decades  are 
no  longer  useful  nor  needed.  We  are  in  a  new 
age,  and  appeals  even  to  the  Bible  have  not  the 
same  cogency  as  of  yore,  for  there  is  an  appeal 
now  to  that  which  existed  even  before  that  best 
of  books,  the  Bible,  was  collated — namely,  the 
call  of  the  soul  within  each  man,  in  which  each 
and  every  man  can  find  God.  The  quiet  reason- 
ableness of  it  all,  is  the  last  and  best  appeal. 
It  is  reasonable  that  there  should  be  a  God:  it 
is  reasonable  that  man^s  soul  should  be  immortal, 
unless,  indeed,  he  refuses  to  become  ensouled. 


xii  FOREWORD 

and  uses  his  free-will  to  remain  mere  mortal, 

with 

"Discontented  feet, 
For  sapphire  floors  unmeet." 

At  no  time  has  there  been  more  need  than  now 
of  simple,  clear  statements  in  our  pulpits,  of  the 
Truth  entrusted  to  His  servants,  because  there 
are  many  churches  that  are  qualifying,  diluting 
or  even  abandoning  one  position  after  another, 
in  the  kind  but  soft  hope  of  making  religion 
appear  more  attractive.  A  broadening  which 
approaches  the  tenuity  of  threadbareness  will 
never  make  a  religion  containing  anything  at- 
tractive to  strong  men.  Hard  theology  is  bad, 
but  soft  theology  is  worse.  Religion  suffers  from 
diffusion;  as  it  gains  in  extension  it  loses  in  inten- 
sity. A  religion  which  tries  to  evade  pain,  grows 
formal,  cold  and  pallid.  It  is  a  cross  which  pin- 
nacles our  churches,  and  it  is  a  cross  which  is 
enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  men.  The  idea  of 
sacrifice  is  imbedded  in  all  religions,  but  was 
transfigured  with  peculiar  glory  first  by  Chris- 
tianity. In  no  soft  and  sensuous  civilization  can 
the  soul  attain  full  growth;  martyrdom,  in  its 
right  sense,  that  is,  sacrifice  of  self,  is  fundamental 
and  essential.  The  call  to  high  adventure,  and 
the   crusading  spirit,   is  synchronous  with   the 


FOREWORD  xiii 

vigorous  eras  of  the  Church.  Just  as  m  mechan- 
ics, the  formula  for  the  momentum  of  a  moving 
body  is  the  mass  multiplied  by  the  velocity,  exact- 
ly so  in  religion,  the  formula  for  the  momentum 
or  efficiency  of  a  man  in  the  social  order,  is  moral 
purpose  multiplied  by  the  ability  to  think  straight, 
that  is,  moral  earnestness  multiplied  by  intellec- 
tual clearness;  conscience  multiplied  by  brain; 
sentiment  multiplied  by  sense;  head  multiplied 
by  heart.  The  product  is  first,  restraining  power, 
and  second,  motive  power.  But  all  cheapening 
of  religion,  or  apologizing  for  it,  entails  certain 
and  sure  loss  of  restraining,  impelling  and  com- 
pelling power.  Men  of  thought  and  action 
look  for  a  firm  belief  with  militant  qualities  which 
will  stand  by  them  in  times  of  trial,  as  when  they 
gather  before  an  open  grave.  A  religion  must  be 
positive  then,  if  never  before.  They  do  not 
care  for  negations,  general  waivers  and  disclaimers 
there,  however  pretty  the  substitute  may  be  in 
fair  weather,  or  amidst  academic  surroundings. 
These  meditations  have  been  gathered  together 
in  the  earnest  desire  to  help  others  with  those 
thoughts  which  have  helped  the  writer.  The 
excerpts  and  quotations  have  been  collated  from 
such  widely  various  sources,  and  for  so  long  a 
period,   that  it  has  been  found  impossible  to 


xiv  FOREWORD 

identify,  verify  and  assign  authority  to  them  all. 
The  aim  and  endeavor  is  to  bring  thoughtful  men 
back  to  the  religion  of  their  birth-right,  and  to 
re-state  in  simplest  terms  what  is  believed  to 
be  a  religious  faith  which  contains  not  only  present 
peace,  but  future  joy. 

One  pleasant  duty  still  remains,  namely,  to 
thank  the  kind  friends  who  have  read  the  manu- 
script and  offered  valuable,  generous  and  helpful 
criticism.  The  Reverend  Professor  Denslow, 
D.  D.,  the  Reverend  F.  W.  Harriman,  D.  D., 
the  Reverend  Professor  Samuel  Hart,  D.  D.,  the 
Ven.  George  F.  Nelson,  D.  D.,  and  the  Rever- 
end Ernest  M.  Stires,  D.  D. 

H.H. 

Epiphany,  1912. 


GUI  BONO? 

OR 

"WHAT  SHALL  IT  PROFIT?" 


CHAPTER  I 

WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

"I  go  to  prove  my  soul. 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way. 
What  time,  what  circuit  first,  I  ask  not: 
In  time,  in  His  good  time  I  shall  arrive: 
He  guides  me  and  the  bird." — Browning. 

An  everyday  question  of  the  times  is  this — 
''  What's  the  good  of  it  ?  "  or  "  Cui  Bono  V  As  the 
sphinx  on  the  Cairo  road  was  said  to  have  asked 
of  all  comers  a  riddle  with  immediate  death  as 
a  penalty  for  a  faulty  answer,  so  does  our  world's 
riddle,  "  Cui  BonoV^  come  to  us,  and  death  is  the 
penalty  for  a  faulty  reply.  Yes,  worse  than 
death,  since  existence  without  hope  in  the  world 
would  be  an  existence  worse  than  death.  More- 
over, everyone  is  compelled  to  make  an  answer; 
to  remain  dumb  is  tantamount  to  a  confession 
that  no  reply  can  be  made.  It  is  therefore  worth  ^ 
while  to  frame  a  correct  answer,  because  if  we 
reply  wrongly  the  result  in  our  lives  will  be  pessi- 
mism, while  if  we  answer  rightly,  the  result  in 
our  lives  will  be  peace. 

What  is  the  good  of  religion?    What  is  the 


4  WHAT   IS  THE  WORLD   FOR? 

good  of  Christianity?  What^s  the  world  for? 
These  queries  are  not  infrequent,  but  they  are 
repressed,  especially  in  the  presence  of  professed 
or  professional  Christians.  It  is  a  pity,  for  there- 
by much  peace  is  foregone. 

We  live  in  a  most  enquiring  age;  everything  is 
challenged  to  give  a  reason  why  it  exists,  or  why 
it  should  be  longer  tolerated.  If  a  new  machine 
is  put  on  the  market,  the  question  immediately 
asked  is,  "What's  the  good  of  it?";  and  unless 
it  will  pay  for  itself  several  times  over,  it  is  not 
given  standing-room  in  a  mill.  Or  if  a  new  pro- 
cess is  patented,  elaborate  explanations  and  pros- 
pectuses are  printed  showing  the  merits  of  the 
new  process,  in  anticipation  of  the  expected  ques- 
tions which  will  surely  be  asked  as  to  its  worth, 
and  how  much  money  it  will  earn  or  save.  Be- 
lievers in  Christianity  need  not  hope  to  escape 
from  interrogatories  as  to  what  religion  is  good 
for  in  the  profit  and  loss  account  of  life.  Indeed, 
we  are  under  deep  and  lasting  obligations  to  those 
critics  who  have  asked  questions  fairly  and  frank- 
ly, because  for  every  query  there  has  arisen  in  time 
a  good  reply;  for  every  Athanasius  there  arises 
an  Arius,  for  every  antagonist  a  protagonist. 

Most  of  us  have  answered  the  question  in  our 
own  way,  but  all  of  us  have  friends  who  have  not 


A  SEARCH  FOR  TRUTH  6 

yet  passed  the  Slough  of  Despond  and  Doubt, 
or  are  even  on  the  road  which  leads  to  Doubting 
Castle  where  lives  Giant  Despair.  We  wish 
that  these  dear  friends  would  again  try  to  find 
the  answer  to  the  world's  riddle.  There  is  a  good 
reply,  and  one  which  results  not  in  pessimism 
but  in  peace.  Cardinal  Cusa  said  that  *'In 
seeking  the  reason  of  things,  we  seek  God."  Rus- 
kin  wrote  that  "Wheresoever  the  search  after 
truth  begins,  there  life  begins;  wheresoever  the 
search  ceases,  there  life  ceases."  Every  soul 
must  make  the  search  for  himself — it  cannot  be 
done  by  proxy.  Each  thoughtful  individual  must 
construct  his  own  philosophy.  The  Christian 
only  can  frame  a  gentle,  reasonable  system  or 
philosophy  by  which  to  live. 

The  inquiry  should  be  made  fearlessly,  patiently, 
and  with  entire  willingness  to  accept  the  result. 
Marcus  Aurelius  wrote  that  if  anyone  could  con- 
vince him  of  error  he  would  be  very  glad  to  change 
his  opinion,  for  "Truth  is  my  business,  and  no- 
body was  ever  hurt  by  it,  or  received  mischief 
from  it,  excepting  him  who  continued  in  igno- 
rance and  mistake."  We  must  read  the  record 
of  the  past,  and  the  signs  of  the  times  accurately. 
That  Cambridge  tutor  was  right  who  said  it  was 
the  business  of  the  class-room  to  translate  Plato 


6  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

correctly,  and  not  primarily  to  understand  him; 
before  we  can  tell  what  a  man  means  we  must 
first  have  patience  to  find  out  just  what  he  says. 
In  the  same  way,  it  is  our  business  first  to  trans- 
late into  the  terms  of  the  day  the  meaning  of 
God's  universe  in  trying  to  make  answer  to  the 
riddle  of  the  world.  Goethe's  dying  words  were, 
''Light,  more  light!"  We,  the  heirs  of  all  the 
ages,  have  more  light;  to  Goethe  it  was  denied, 
to  us  it  is  vouchsafed.  It  is  a  great  thing  to 
live  in  such  times;  in  some  respects  it  is  a  privi- 
lege, and  in  others  a  peril;  for  only  too  often 
there  is  the  false  focus  and  wrong  perspective 
of  the  half-light  and  the  half-truth;  it  was  never 
so  difficult  as  now  to  discriminate  between  glit- 
tering falsehood  and  homely  truth.  Truth 
changes  its  aspect  continually,  although  its 
essence  is  ever  the  same.  Like  a  mountain, 
seen  from  different  view-points,  it  appears  first 
perhaps  as  a  pyramid,  again  as  square-topped  or 
sloping,  according  to  the  perspective. 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties. 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth; 
They  must  upward  still  and  onward 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth. " 

What  does  history  tell  us  to  aid  in  our  search 
for  the  answer  to  our  questions,  "Cm  Bono?** 


CRITERION  IS  RESULT  7 

"What  is  the  world  for?"  As  all  can  learn 
from  the  mistakes  of  others,  so  we  can  learn 
from  errors  that  have  been  made  by  nations, 
religions  and  philosophies  in  their  answer  to  the 
world's  riddle.  Was  their  reply  to  the  great 
interrogatory  one  that  brought  to  them  pessi- 
mism or  peace?  This  shall  be  our  criterion; 
if  they  answered  wrongly,  the  result  was  pessi- 
mism, but  if  rightly,  they  would  have  had  peace. 
We  can  know  by  the  results. 

How  did  ancient  Egypt  reply  to  the  question? 
She  said  the  world  was  for  material  things,  and 
she  carried  her  knowledge  of  material  things  to 
an  high  degree  of  excellence.  Even  to  this  day 
it  is  unknown  how  her  engineers  erected  her  giant 
pyramids;  nor  do  we  know  their  secret  of  welding 
bronze;  it  is  for  us  one  of  the  "lost  arts."  Greece 
answered  the  query  by  saying  virtually  that  the 
world  existed  for  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect 
and  the  fine  arts.  Rome  said  that  the  world 
was  for  the  enjoyment  of  ease,  pleasure,  panem 
et  drcenses — sensual  things,  in  a  phrase.  These 
three  nations  answered  the  world's  riddle  wrongly, 
for  they  descended  from  pre-eminence  into  the 
paralysis  of  pessimism.  Lessing  wrote  that  the 
history  of  the  world  is  the  divine  education  of 
the  race.    These  nations  refused  the  divine  educa- 


8  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

tion,  and  gave  themselves  to  the  lower  life,  thus 
they  denied  themselves  the  high  destiny  they 
might  have  had. 

The  religions  of  the  world,  with  the  one  excep- 
tion of  Christianity,  have  failed  to  give  the  right 
answer  that  makes  for  peace  and  not  for  pessi- 
mism. Confucianism's  ethical  rules  are  of  a 
negative  type,  and  a  copy-book  morality;  and 
time,  trial  and  test  all  prove  that  a  man  cannot 
be  made  good  by  rules  and  regulations,  precepts 
and  laws.  We  ourselves  are  not  altogether  free 
from  criticism  in  this  matter,  because  often  and 
again  every  state  in  the  Union  has  passed  statutes, 
which  although  printed  in  the  statute-books, 
never  become  written  on  the  hearts  of  men. 
It  is  daily  more  apparent,  that  a  morality  that 
tries  to  work  from  the  outside  inward,  can  never 
accomplish  the  results  which  can  be  obtained  by 
a  religion  which  works  from  the  inside  outward — 
that  is,  from  the  heart.  Shintoism,  to  use  Baron 
Nitobe's  word,  is  "super-annuated".  Bushido, 
a  dear  and  attractive  product  of  old  Japan  of 
chivalrous  days,  is  a  Japonicized  Confucianism. 
Its  essence  is  eternal,  but  the  form  is  moribund. 
Buddhism,  with  its  creed  of  isolation,  and  its 
Nirvana  in  which,  by  the  extinction  of  all  desire, 
a  selfish  narcotic  or  opiate  is  administered,  in- 


PRECEPTS  OF  lEYASU  9 

ducing  a  species  of  hypnotic  state,  has  no  vital 
power  to  Uft  the  world  from  pure  pessimism  and 
paresis.  Visitors  to  the  shrine  of  leyasu  at 
Nikko  are  given  gratuitously  a  printed  leaf 
entitled  "The  Precepts  of  leyasu",  translated  by 
a  professor  of  the  Imperial  University.  Natu- 
rally, at  such  a  place,  the  very  best  that  could 
be  given  would  be  presented.  What  has  it  to 
offer  to  us,  either  as  a  religion  or  a  philosophy? 
The  page  reads  thus: 

"Life  is  hke  unto  a  long  journey  with  a  heavy 
load.  Let  thy  steps  be  slow  and  steady,  that 
thou  stumble  [stumblest]  not.  Persuade  thy- 
self that  imperfection  and  inconvenience  is  the 
natural  lot  of  mortals,  and  there  will  be  no  room 
for  discontent,  neither  for  despair.  When  am- 
bitious desires  arise  in  thy  heart,  recall  the  days 
of  extremity  thou  hast  passed  through.  For- 
bearance is  the  root  of  quietness  and  assurance 
forever.  Look  upon  wrath  as  thy  enemy.  If 
thou  knowest  only  what  it  is  to  conquer,  and  know- 
est  not  what  it  is  to  be  defeated,  woe  unto  thee! 
It  will  fare  ill  with  thee.  Find  fault  with  thyself 
rather  than  with  others.  Better  the  less  than 
the  more." 

Whatever  this  is  as  a  creed,  it  has  no  particu- 
larly inspiring  tone.  The  literature  of  the  Orient 
can  be  searched  in  vain  for  anything  which  can 
be  compared  with  the  writings  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  giving  uplift,  cheer,  inspiration.    Take 


10  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD   FOR? 

for  another  illustration,  that  most  ancient  col- 
lection of  Chinese  writings,  the  "Shu  King/' 
Its  unknown  writer  quotes  with  approval  a  bit 
of  poetry  whose  author  even  he  had  forgotten. 
The  fragment  is  entitled  the  "Royal  Road  to 
Righteousness. '^ 

"The  Royal  Road  to  Righteousness 
Is  straight  without  unevenness: 
And  private  love  and  private  hate 
It  leaves  aside,  by  going  straight. 
On  every  side  it  gives  a  view. 
Forever  clear,  forever  true: 
And  broad  and  easy  'tis  to  know 
For  him  who  has  the  heart  to  go. 
The  Royal  Road  shall  never  bend, 
The  Royal  Road  shall  never  end." 

There  is  nothing  in  all  this  to  support  or 
strengthen  a  man  in  time  of  loss,  loneliness,  or  the 
great  transition-day.  One  can  search  throughout 
the  entire  labyrinth  of  Oriental  literature  in  the 
vain  hope  that  somewhere  and  somehow  he  will 
come  upon  something  which  will  repay  his  time 
and  trouble.  That  there  is  something  of  great 
beauty  in  the  Oriental  religions  cannot  be  denied; 
for  instance,  the  Buddhist  idea  of  pity;  and  the 
Confucian  idea  of  benevolence;  and  the  reverence 
and  respect  paid  to  elders  and  parents,  from  the 
Turks  of  the  Near  East,  to  the  Chinese  of  the 
Far  East.    God  gives  His  revelation  as  it  can  be 


BUDDHISM  11 

borne;  it  had  its  message  once  for  those  people, 
and  the  lovable  characteristics  referred  to  made 
Phillips  Brooks  once  say,  ''I  wish  that  Christian- 
ity could  go  out  into  the  Orient,  not  alone  for 
what  we  could  do  for  them,  but  for  what  they 
could  do  for  us."  Upon  the  foundations  already 
made,  their  fundamental  ideas  of  pity,  benevo- 
lence, reverence,  may  expand  and  flower  into 
a  Christianity  of  love,  and  charity,  which  may 
cause  our  present  attainments  to  lock  petty, 
poor  and  puerile.  Buddhism  is  self-seeking,  as 
is  made  evident  by  recalling  the  story  of  its  ori^ 
gin,  as  told  in  any  biography  of  Prince  Buddha; 
how  the  boy  was  kept  from  all  knowledge  of  pain, 
evil  and  death,  until  once  he  eluded  his  tutors 
and  met  in  one  day  first  an  old,  then  a  sick, 
and  then  a  dead  man.  Buddha  conceived  the 
idea  that  to  be  free  from  all  this  evil,  a  man  must 
crush  desire,  that  is,  attain  vacuity.  A  seeking 
for  peace  by  letting  the  mind  run  down  to  a  calm 
— the  calm  of  non-desire.  To  him,  even  the 
desire  to  live  was  hateful.  Buddhism  leadsmen 
to  abandon  all  home  ties,  and  all  social  duties: 
thus  Nirvana  is  mere  selfish  isolation.  That 
there  is  no  hope  in  this  religion,  is  shown  by 
Arnold  in  his  poem,  ''The  Light  of  Asia,"  where 
he  relates  the  story  of  a  little  mother  in  India, 


12  WHAT   IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

who,  when  widowed,  started  for  her  old  home 
with  her  two  children,  but  lost  them  both  in 
crossing  a  river,  by  an  eagle  taking  one  and  the 
river  drowning  the  other;  how  this  little  widow 
sought  the  aid  of  the  Buddhist  priest  and  he  told 
her,  "Daughter,  bring  me  a  mustard  seed  from 
a  home  where  death  has  never  been,  and  I  will 
restore  to  you  not  only  your  children  but  your 
husband."  After  long  search,  she  finally  accused 
the  priest  of  merely  trying  to  show  to  her  by  slow 
degrees,  that  death  is  universal,  and  he  replied, 
"Yes,  that  is  all  that  I  can  do!"  Now,  place 
over  against  this  what  Christianity  can  do,  and 
for  an  illustration,  read  the  inscription  upon  a 
marble  monument  in  Lichfield  cathedral, — 
"Sacred  to  the  memory  of  two  only  children,  in 
humble  gratitude  for  the  glorious  assurance  that 
'Of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven!'"  Buddha 
gives  a  sedative,  Christ  gives  hope.  It  is  dirge 
versus  symphony,  it  is  apathy  versus  energy, 
it  is  pessimism  versus  peace. 

Brahmanism  clearly  and  boldly  states  that 
"existence  has  no  purpose,  and  the  world  is  wholly 
evil,  and  that  all  good  persons  want  to  be  taken 
out  of  it  and  return  to  Brahm," — Brahm,  the 
impersonality  from  which  the  soul  emanated  and 
to  which  it  seeks  to  return.     In  a  sermon  given 


BRAHMANAS  13 

in  the  mosque  of  St.  Sophia,  and  printed  in  the 
Sirat-i-Mustakeen,  a  leading  Moslem  weekly, 
and  translated  in  "The  Hibbert  Journal,"  Eshref 
Edib  Bey  said,  ''Ignorant  preachers  cry,  'Leave 
the  worid!'  and  in  proportion  as  we  withdrew 
into  an  isolated  life,  and  abandoned  industry  and 
effort,  we  fell  into  the  depth  of  misery;  in  propor- 
tion as  we  worshipped  the  world,  and  preferred 
earthly  and  selfish  advantage,  we  became  slaves!" 
There  was  a  Puritan  once — John  Milton — who 
said: — "I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered 
virtue,  unexercised  and  unbreathed,  that  never 
sallies  out  and  sees  her  adversary,  but  slinks 
out  of  the  race  where  the  immortal  garland  is 
to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust  and  heat."  Max 
Miiller  can  be  quoted  as  an  authority,  and  he 
called  the  Brahmanas  "Twaddle  and  ravings" 
(p.  4,  Bross  Lectures,  1905).  There  are  those 
who  fancy  that  there  can  be  found  a  religion 
especially  adapted  to  their  needs  in  some  Oriental 
creed.  A  little  journey  through  the  East,  giving 
a  near  view  of  the  dull  hopelessness  and  the  ab- 
ject helplessness  produced  by  their  religions, 
would  soon  demonstrate  the  futility  of  the  thought 
that  the  world's  riddle  is  to  be  solved  by  the 
religions  of  the  Orient;  and  if  travel  is  impossible, 
then  a  study  of  their  literature  will  convince  the 


14  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

open-minded  seeker  after  truth,  that  the  Rubai- 
yat  sums  up  the  case  completely  in  its  cynical, 
dismal  and  despairing  lines, 

"  I  evermore  came  out  by  the  same  door  where  in 

I  went." 
****** 

"There  was  the  door  to  which  I  had  no  key; 

There  was  the  veil  through  which  I  might  not  see: 

Some  little  talk  awhile  there  was  of  me  and  thee, 

And  then — ^no  more  of  thee  and  me. " 

To  Eastern  pantheism  all  life  is  one,  and  the 
significance  of  a  man  is  no  greater  than  that  of 
the  beast.  Oriental  religions  are  passive,  sub- 
missive and  fatalistic.  They  are  literally  "nat- 
ural" religions,  as  they  leave  man  in  the  animal's 
position  relative  to  nature,  that  is,  he  is  left  to 
adapt  himself  to  the  environment  of  nature's 
conditions,  and  accepting  the  conditions,  strive 
to  evolve  a  man  fit  to  cope  with  adverse  circum- 
stances, in  the  same  way  as  a  giraffe  grows  his 
long  neck,  and  the  bear  his  fur  coat.  The  Oriental 
religions  passively  accept  conditions,  and  conform, 
but  Christianity  declines  to  be  static  and  tries 
to  control  the  situation,  by  placing  maninasuper- 
or  supra-natural  position.  Christianity  was  the 
first  religion  to  do  this,  and  to  give  man  a  posi- 
tion of  transcendence  in  the  order  of  nature. 
Christianity  was  the  first  religion  to  make  reve- 
lation to  man  of  his  own  value  and  worth,  and  in 


ANSWER  OF  PHILOSOPHY  15 

lieu  of  saying  *' Kismet !'\  or  "It  is  fate!",  gives 
primacy  to  effort  and  human  endeavor.  It  is 
djrnamic,  while  the  other  religions  are  static. 
It  is  a  substitution  of  a  doctrine  of  consecra- 
tion of  ourselves  to  others,  in  lieu  of  a  doctrine 
of  renunciation  of  all  obligations  to  our  fellow 
man.  It  is  the  new  doctrine  of  being  not  merely 
our  brother's  keeper,  but  our  brother's  brother. 
The  monastic  Oriental  view  of  life  is  as  of  a  ship 
about  to  be  wrecked  from  which  one  must  escape 
a  runaway  and  a  coward;  the  Christian  view  is  as 
of  a  brave  vessel  which  one  must  bring  through 
storm  and  stress  to  the  home  port.  It  is  the 
coward's  view  of  life  versus  the  militant.  The 
older  religions  of  the  world  were  of  the  early 
dawn  of  the  world's  hope,  while  the  Christian 
religion  is  the  beginning  of  a  brighter  day. 

How  did  philosophy  answer  the  query  "Cm* 
Bono  f  "  and  "  What  is  the  world  for  ?  "  Socrates, 
"the  enlightener",  was  of  the  first  to  indicate 
that  there  could  arise  in  man  a  soul :  a  supra-man 
with  a  spiritual  world  above  the  mundane;  that 
the  vital  thing  was  not  outward  performance  and 
achievement,  but  inner  harmony  and  soul-health. 
It  was  through  Socrates  that  the  inner  life  first 
attained  independence,  and  the  individual  became 
to  be  regarded  as  something  of  worth.      That 


16  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

Socrates  had  really  attained  the  higher  life  is 
shown  by  his  preaching,  "Take  no  thought  for 
your  persons,  nor  your  properties,  but  for  your 
souls."  Also  his  dying  words  as  he  drank  the 
fatal  hemlock,  "You  may  kill  me  if  you  can  catch 
me",  meaning  his  soul,  the  real  Socrates.  Upon 
the  foundations  made  by  Socrates,  Plato,  the 
"kingly  thinker",  carried  the  Greek  view  of  life 
to  its  philosophical  zenith.  Plato  conceived  of 
entities  beyond  this  fleeting  world  of  sense.  To 
him,  thought,  and  thought  only,  constituted  the 
core  of  reality.  For  one  who  can  accept  this 
view  of  phenomena,  the  sense-world  retreats 
and  the  thought-world  is  the  world  that  becomes 
the  one  immediately  present.  The  tremendous 
advantage  of  this  is  that  it  breaks  the  power  of 
fate,  destiny,  circumstance  or  environment  over 
man;  it  allows  him  to  transcend  time  and  space. 
In  the  thought-world,  real  being  is  simple  and 
constant,  while  in  the  sense-world,  life  is  complex 
and  uncertain.  It  was  a  great  step  forward  and 
upward  towards  a  proper  answer  to  theworld^s 
riddle;  nevertheless, Socrates,  Plato,  and  Confucius 
were  but  the  exclusive  mystagogues  for  an  en- 
lightened few.  A  Gospel  for  a  poor,  suffering 
and  oppressed  multitude  had  not  yet  been  enun- 
ciated. 


ANSWER  OF  CYNICS,  EPICUREANS  &  STOICS  17 

Following  Socrates  and  Plato  came  the  Schools 
of  the  Cynics,  the  Epicureans  and  the  Stoics. 
A  brief  characterization  of  them  must  needs  be 
given,  to  show  how  widely  the  world  sought  for 
the  answer  to  its  riddle.  The  Cynics  taught 
that  happiness  came  from  excellence  alone — 
excellence,  that  is,  as  the  world  estimates  it. 
But  this  sort  of  excellence  can  be  the  property 
only  of  the  select  few.  Cynicism  is  essentially 
a  destructive  and  not  a  constructive  philosophy. 
It  is  not  remote  from  the  school  of  anarchy  and 
the  red  flag.  There  is  an  instructive  mural 
painting  in  the  Congressional  Library,  where 
Anarchy  is  represented  as  tearing  down  the  arch 
of  civilization,  while  the  super-structure  is  shown 
as  sure  to  fall  and  destroy  Anarchy  herself  in 
the  general  ruin.  Cynical  Voltaire  frankly  said 
that  except  for  a  few  sages  and  rich,  the  world 
was  a  crowd  of  unfortunates.  Aristotle  wrote, 
that  life  was  not  worth  while  for  those  who  were 
ill,  nor  for  paupers.  Again,  the  philosophy 
of  the  Epicureans  denied  that  the  gods  were 
interested  in  man  at  all;  and  their  philosophy 
produced,  not  strong,  helpful  men,  but  weak  and 
spongy  parasites;  it  is  a  philosophy  which  is 
pleasing  only  to  those  who  have  health  and  youth 
and  wealth,  but  it  has  nothing  to  offer  to  the  sick, 


18  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

the  old  nor  the  poor.  Horace,  wailing  over  the 
past,  and  Mimnernus,  mourning  over  his  lost 
youth,  are  examples  of  this  useless  school  of 
philosophy.  And  still  again,  the  school  of  the 
Stoics,  the  most  attractive  of  the  philosophies, 
long  dead  as  a  rule  of  life,  although  ever  alive  as 
a  virtue,  is  an  enfeeblement  virus  and  its  key-note 
is  apathy,  and  its  logical  end  is  suicide.  Brutus, 
"the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all",  is  a  sample; 
and  Marcus  Aurelius  shows  himself  in  his  writings 
as  tossed  hither  and  yon  upon  a  sea  of  con- 
flicting doubts  and  fears.  "  Pleasures '',  says 
Chesterfield,  "I  have  enjoyed  and  know  their 
futility."  Goethe  spoke  of  himself  thus, — "In 
all  my  seventy-five  years  I  have  not  had  one 
month  of  comfort — nothing  but  toil  and  care." 
A  French  and  false  idea  of  life  is  found  in  a  fre- 
quently quoted  verse, 

"La  vie  est  breve; 
Un  peu  d'espoir, 
Un  peu  de  reve, 
Et  puis — bon  soir!" 

Lorenzo  di   Medici's  Carnival   Song  conveys 
the  same  erroneous  view  of  life: — 

"Beauteous  is  Hfe  in  blossom! 
And  it  fleeteth — fleeteth  ever; 
Whoso  would  be  joyful — let  him! 
There's  no  surety  for  the  morrow. " 


^'SEEING  IS  BELIEVING"  19 

"Quant'  e  bella  giovinezza, 
Che  si  fugge  tuttavia! 
Chi  vuol  esser  lieto  sia, 
Di  doman  non  &h  certezza. " 


Therefore,  the  conclusion  of  the  matter  is  this, 
that  so  far  as  the  schools.  Cynic,  Epicurean  or 
Stoic,  are  concerned  they  disapprove  themselves, 
because  of  their  fruits,  which  are  seen,  in  the  main, 
to  be  mere  apples  of  Sodom.  They  made  a  wrong 
reply  to  the  world's  riddle,  and  we  know  it, 
because  their  result  is  rank  pessimism  and  not 
peace. 

Another  large  class  of  men  who  have  not  as 
yet  come  upon  the  right  answer  to  the  question, 
'^Cui  Bonof^\  is  the  class  who  propound  their 
creed  dogmatically  thus,  "Seeing  is  believing." 
It  is  true  that  when  the  University  student  be- 
gins his  work  in  the  laboratory,  he  starts  with 
that  dogma,  and  the  reason  of  it  is  that  our  system 
of  education  is  designed  to  awaken  his  powers  of 
observation.  It  is  only  the  primer  stage  of  his 
training,  however,  because  sooner  or  later  in 
the  laboratory  he  comes  in  contact  with  a  live 
wire,  and  from  that  moment  his  touch-stone  of 
"seeing  is  believing"  is  amended,  and  he  begins 
to  be  satisfied  to  believe  in  things  by  their  effects 
and  results.     In  the  chemical  laboratory  the  same 


20  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

thing  happens,  for  he  discovers  that  if  he  wishes 
to  prove  that  a  certain  liquid  contains  iron,  he 
does  not  need  to  isolate  the  iron  as  metal,  but  he 
adds  the  reagent  ammonia  to  the  acid  solution, 
and  if  he  obtains  a  brown  flocculent  precipitate, 
he  is  quite  satisfied  to  declare  that  although  he 
did  not  see  the  iron  as  metal,  he  is  sure  that  the 
original  hquid  contained  iron.  Any  court  would 
allow  the  testimony.  But  what  does  this  es- 
tablish ?  It  shows  that  in  our  University  labora- 
tories, scientists  often  will  believe  what  they  do 
not  see,  and  further,  they  often  will  believe  in 
a  proof  which  is  founded  only  on  effects  or  results. 
Religion  doesn't  ask  for  more!  Scientists  believe 
in  electricity,  which  they  cannot  see,  nor  do  they 
even  understand  what  it  is;  so  religionists  believe 
in  God,  whom  they  cannot  see,  and  concerning 
Whom  they  often  err  in  trying  to  describe  His 
"attributes".  Scientists  have  implicit  faith  in 
a  given  result  arising  from  a  set  of  given  causes; 
so  Christians  have  faith  in  Christianity  because 
of  the  results  obtainable  by  their  religion,  and 
by  no  other  means.  Every  inventor  has  the 
faith  faculty,  and  by  the  eye  of  faith  he  sees  his 
invention  perfected  long  before  the  actual  con- 
struction begins.  The  faith  faculty  is  universal. 
Huxley  said,  "The  ground  of  our  actions  and  the 


DEFINITION  OF  FAITH  21 

validity  of  our  reasoning  rest  upon  the  act  of 
faith  which  leads  us  to  take  a  part  as  a  guide  for 
the  future."  Spencer  wrote,  ''The  absolute 
exists,  but  is  unknowable."  To  this  was  replied 
that  no  one  is  aware  that  anything  is  a  limit 
or  a  defect  until  at  the  same  time  he  is  above  and 
beyond  it;  an  ox  cannot  know  anything  of  geom- 
etry; therefore,  when  Spencer  said  that  the 
absolute  exists  but  was  unknowable,  he  is  looking 
over  the  finite  and  knows  the  absolute  as  an  exis- 
tent being. 

"Whoever  plants  a  seed  beneath  the  sod, 
And  looks  to  see  it  push  away  the  clod, 
He  trusts  in  God !" 

"Whoever  says,  when  clouds  are  in  the  sky, 
Be  patient,  heart!  Light  breaketh  by  and  by, 
Trusts  the  Most  High!" 

How  shall  faith  be  defined?  Thus,  "Faith  is 
a  conviction  of  unseen  realities."  Faith  is  a 
truth  revealed  and  made  objective.  The  writer 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  said  that  faith  was 
the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence 
of  things  not  seen.  Consistency  would  seem  to 
demand  either  a  deeper  faith  or  a  bolder  un- 
belief. Helen  Keller's  idea  was,  that  "the  best  and 
most  beautiful  things  in  the  world  could  not  be 
seen  nor  touched,  but  just  felt  in  the  heart." 


22  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

Now  doubt  is  the  stepping-stone  to  faith.  Doubt 
is  only  too  often  looked  upon  as  an  evil,  but  it  is 
not,  and  as  Tennyson  sang,  ''There  is  more  faith 
in  honest  doubt,  believe  me,  than  in  half  the 
creeds."  Doubt  to  be  of  use,  must  be  honest, 
fearless,  patient.  St.  Paul  tells  us  plainly  to 
prove  all  things.  An  old  Turkish  proverb  runs 
''Who  questions,  learns."  We  should  fear  doubt 
less  than  a  too-easy  faith. 

How  shall  "religion"  be  defined?  The  ancient 
phrase  is  that  "religion  is  the  divine  life  and  moral 
power  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man."  To  this 
might  be  added,  "manifested  by  its  fruits  of 
unselfishness,  patience,  service."  Religion  is 
a  body  of  supra-rational  facts,  reducible  to  intelli- 
gible propositions.  Lantantius  said  that  religion 
was  the  attachment  of  man  to  God  by  the  bonds 
of  piety.  The  Chinese  symbol  or  ideogram  for 
religion  indicates  "the  tie  that  binds."  A  psychol- 
ogist might  say  that  religion  was  an  appreciative 
attitude  towards  the  values  of  God  and  man 
which  are  related  and  inter-react  as  transmitter 
and  receiver.  Phillips  Brooks  held  that  religion 
was  the  consecrated  force  by  means  of  which  all 
human  activities  should  be  inspired  and  directed, 
supplying  an  extra-mundane  motive.  Religion 
is  communion  with  God.     It  is  the  background  of 


DEFINITION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  23 

life.  It  is  the  vido  dei.  Washington  spoke  of 
rehgion  with  his  characteristic  moderation,  and 
his  words  should  be  cherished  as  a  warning — 
"Let  us  with  care  indulge  the  hope  that  we  can 
keep  our  Nation  moral  without  the  use  of 
rehgion." 

Christianity  can  be  defined  as  Christ's  religion. 
Or  the  revelation  of  God  through  Christ.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  spirit  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  re- 
incarnated in  humanity.  Its  substance  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  one  word  "redemption"  with  its 
postulates  and  its  results.  It  brings  pardon,  a 
sense  of  fellowship  with  God,  and  a  sure  confidence 
of  final  victory  over  the  world  and  the  grave. 
Christianity  is  nothing,  unless  it  is  the  power 
in  the  lives  of  men  of  the  Holy  Spirit — Christ's 
witness  within  the  heart  calling  us.  The  proph- 
ets, apostles,  and  saints  have  heard  the  Call; 
and  it  comes  to  us  all  in  time. 

How  do  we  hear  this  Call  ?  A  poet  has  des- 
cribed it,  saying  that  it  comes  to  us,  each  in  his 
own  tongue. 

"A  fire-mist  and  a  planet, 

A  crystal  and  a  cell ; 
A  jelly-fish  and  a  saurian. 

And  a  cave  where  the  cave-men  dwell; 
Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty, 

And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod — 


24  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD   FOR? 

Some  call  it  '  Evolution  ^ 
But  we  call  it  God!" 

"Like  tides  on  a  crescent  sea-beach, 

When  the  moon  is  new  and  thin; 
Into  our  hearts  high  yearnings 

Come  welling  and  surging  in : 
Come  from  that  mystic  ocean, 

On  which  no  foot  can  fall — 
Some  people  call  it  '  Nature  ^ 

We  call  it  'The  Call/" 

"A  picket  frozen  on  duty, 

A  mother  starved  for  her  brood, 
Socrates  drinking  the  hemlock, 

Jesus  on  the  rood: 
And  millions,  who,  humble  and  patient, 

The  straight  hard  pathway  trod — 
Some  call  it  *  Consecration  ^ 

But  we  call  it  God!" 

It  is  thus  we  are  called;  instinctively,  and  in- 
tuitively, there  arises  in  our  spiritual  hinterland, 
familiarly  known  as  "the  ground  of  the  heart", 
something  which  will  not  be  gainsaid  nor  refused. 
Some,  as  the  Greeks,  call  it  foolishness — we  know 
it's  God. 

The  supreme  concern  of  Christianity  is  not  a 
reorganization  of  society,  but  the  disclosure  of 
the  proper  relation  of  the  human  soul  to  God. 
Christ  was  not  a  reformer  but  a  revealer;  not  an 
agitator  with  a  plan,  but  an  idealist  with  a  vision; 
His  concern  was  not  social  improvement  first,  but 


THE   MESSIAH'S  ANSWER  25 

spiritual  redemption.  It  is  regeneration  not  by 
reorganization  but  by  inspiration.  He  gave  new 
power  to  overcome  evil,  to  comfort  in  sorrow, 
to  give  strength  to  bear  burdens;  to  take  away 
regret  for  the  past,  and  to  inspire  with  hope  for 
the  future.  His  reUgion  was  not  a  theory  nor  a 
speculation;  not  a  doctrine  nor  a  philosophy, 
but  as  Coleridge  said,  ''a  life";  a  life  maintaining 
certain  personal  relationships,  in  a  spirit  of  love 
and  grateful  reverence,  to  a  Father  whose  nature 
was  shown  in  His  goodness  to  His  universe  and 
His  people.  It  was  Christ,  the  Messiah,  the 
divine  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  first  answered 
the  riddle  of  the  universe  rightly.  He  was  the 
first  to  open  life  to  all,  rich,  or  poor,  the  educated 
or  the  untrained,  those  with  little  or  no  chance 
in  the  world,  or  those  over-blessed  with  oppor- 
tunity and  worldly  advantage.  He  did  this  by 
taking  man  directly  to  God  and  at  once.  His 
calculations  are  not  based  on  this  little  world, 
but  on  a  scale  of  eternity,  and  this  rids  man  once 
and  for  all  of  physical  limitations,  poverty  of 
means,  or  paucity  of  opportunity.  It  was  the 
Nazarene  who  first  made  perfect  adjustment 
between  essence  and  existence.  According  to 
Greek  thought,  the  several  spheres  of  life  touched 
one  another  externally  only;  Jesus  posited  an  all- 


26  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

penetrating  unity  as  the  source  of  life  and  each 
must  draw  his  life  through  it;  and  more,  if  any- 
individual  separated  himself  from  this  unity  in 
selfish  isolation,  that  individual  incurred  at  once 
the  penalty  of  vacuity.  This  unity  or  universal 
life  was  God.  Finite  existence  had  been  degraded 
by  both  religions  and  philosophies  until  exalted 
by  our  Christ,  who  was  the  first  to  teach  that  a 
union  of  the  human  and  the  divine  can  begin  in 
this  world  here  and  now.  Religions  and  phil- 
osophies had  hitherto  been  ontological,  and  had 
tried  to  penetrate  beyond  illusion  and  appearance 
into  verities;  Christ  unified  God  and  man,  de- 
manding a  new  world  of  love  and  mercy  in  this 
present  sphere  of  existence.  He  turned  from  a 
mundane  to  a  cosmic  life.  Thus  a  kingdom  of 
God  was  erected  in  the  very  midst  of  temporali- 
ties. This  was  what  He  meant  when  He  said, 
''The  kingdom  of  God  is  come  nigh  unto  you." 
Phillips  Brooks  put  it  into  a  phrase  when  he  wrote, 
"I  am  a  citizen  of  the  universe."  The  key-words 
are  fellowship,  fatherhood,  childhood;  and  the 
simile  of  the  human  family  is  both  parable  and 
type  of  what  Christ  meant  to  establish  upon  earth 
as  a  preparation  for  the  world  beyond,  upon 
whose  very  threshold  we  are  standing.  Not  an 
extinction   of  the   individual    into   an   absolute 


CHRISTIANITY'S  ANSWER  27 

essence,  but  a  life,  here  and  hereafter,  as  His 
children.  This  means  a  new  birth,  such  as  Nico- 
demus  could  not  comprehend;  a  new  birth  of 
super-  and  supra-rational  beings.  Now  it  was 
in  this  way  that  Christianity  opened  life  to  those 
classes  to  whom  never  before  had  hope  been 
offered — to  the  poor,  the  unfortunate,  the  un- 
educated, the  children.  The  power  of  external 
destiny  over  man  received  its  first  blow  when 
Plato  put  man's  inner  nature  supreme;  but  Plato 
created  only  an  aristocracy  of  those  who  had 
sufficient  strength  of  inner  nature  and  acumen  to 
raise  themselves  above  the  trammels  of  this 
world;  the  Nazarene  did  infinitely  more,  for  He 
freed  man  from  the  thrall  of  any  and  all  limita- 
tions, either  in  his  external  surroundings  or  his 
own  innate  native  incapacity.  The  present  and 
the  future  are  in  this  way  connected,  and  the 
whole  of  present  striving  is  finked  with  the  future, 
and  this  gives  to  the  struggle  point,  object,  rea- 
son, glory.  Christianity  offers  a  new  temper,  a 
spirit  triumphant  over  pain,  sorrow  and  the  grave. 
On  such  a  basis  a  reasonable,  holy  and  living  hope 
can  be  erected,  a  satisfactory  life  can  be  developed 
and  all  this,  cheerfully,  hopefully  and  in  peace. 
Christianity,  and  Christianity  only,  contains  the 
possibilities  of  perfection. 


28  WHAT  IS  THE  WORLD  FOR? 

"In  this  broad  world  of  ours 
Amid  measureless  grossness  and  slag, 
Enclosed  within  its  central  heart 
Nestles  the  seed  Perfection. " 

— Whitman. 


CHAPTER  II 

DIFFICULTIES 

"Never  fear  but  there's  provision 
Of  the  devil  to  quench  knowledge 
Lest  we  walk  the  earth  in  rapture! 
Making  those  who  catch  God's  secret 
Just  so  much  more  prize  their  capture." 

— Browning. 

There  are  many  difficulties  which  meet  the 
earnest  seeker  after  truth,  and  among  them, 
perhaps  the  greatest  is  to  obtain  a  proper  appre- 
hension of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  Why 
should  the  Son  of  Man  suffer  ?  Why  should  the 
Son  of  God  die  for  the  faults  of  others,  and  that 
too  upon  a  cross  ?  The  unchurched  masses  fail 
to  see  any  meaning  in  the  events  of  Holy  Week 
which  the  Church  commemorates  each  year  in 
her  calendar.  It  is  nothing  to  them  whether  one 
man  or  a  thousand  are  crucified.  We  of  the 
twentieth  century  have  difficulty  in  carrying 
our  minds  back  to  an  age  which  permitted  cruci- 
fixion; but  it  was  a  common  enough  sight  in  the 
Roman  colonies.  It  is  said  that  there  were  over 
two  thousand  crucified  under  one  of  the  Roman 


aO  DIFFICULTIES 

pro-consuls  in  Judea,  and  therefore  the  crucifixion 
of  one  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  not  in  itself  any- 
thing unusual  for  the  times  in  which  He  was 
on  earth.  The  historical  fact  is  unquestioned. 
"Crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate"  is  the  secular 
as  well  as  the  sacred  record.  The  Church  holds 
the  doctrine  that  Christ  died  on  the  cross  as  an 
Atonement,  and  the  Church  beUeves  His  words, 
that  the  Son  of  Man  "must  needs  suffer."  The 
Atonement  is  most  woefully  misunderstood  and 
falsely  stated  by  many.  Lafcadio  Hearn  in  no 
place  shows  greater  ignorance  than  when  he  passes 
judgment  upon  the  doctrine,  and  it  is  small 
wonder  that  he  condemns  Christianity,  as  he  sets 
up  the  picture  of  an  angry  and  unforgiving  God, 
who  will  only  be  appeased  by  the  blood  of  an 
innocent  victim;  and  then  he  condemns  Chris- 
tianity as  unethical,  and  ill-suited  to  the  Japanese, 
his  adopted  countrymen.  (Unfamiliar  Japan,  p. 
11.)  Of  course,  the  picture  is  not  ethical,  nor 
is  it  Christianity.  Sadly  enough,  Hearn  is  not 
the  only  one  who  credits  Christianity  with  so 
monstrous  a  doctrine,  and  it  would  seem  as  though 
its  mere  statement  in  the  above  form  would  carry 
its  own  condemnation,  so  strangely  is  it  at 
variance  with  the  genius  of  Christianity.  The 
source  of  the  concept  that  there  must  be  a  blood- 


THE  ATONEMENT  31 

offering  is  in  Leviticus.  In  that  ancient  book  the 
idea  of  the  scape-goat  and  a  sin-offering  is  found. 
The  root  of  the  idea  may  have  been  that  Moses 
wished  to  show  the  IsraeUtes  the  costHness  of 
sin,  and  that  sin  could  be  removed  only  by  blood ; 
it  attempted  to  bring  home  to  the  minds  of  the 
people  the  fact  and  the  conviction  of  sin, — a 
conviction  really  understood  only  by  those  white 
souls  who  live ''  nearer  the  great  white  throne  "  than 
most  of  us.  Wheresoever  the  root  of  the  idea 
is  to  be  found,  this  we  know,  that  the  old  Mosaic 
dispensation  is  not  strictly  comparable  with  the 
new  order,  because  the  Old  Testament  offering 
was  involuntary  on  the  part  of  the  victim,  whereas 
Christ's  was  a  voluntary  sacrifice.  "He  stead- 
fastly set  His  face  to  go  to  Jerusalem",  in  spite 
of  the  warnings  and  beseechings  of  His  disciples. 
All  attempts  fail  to  liken  the  two  as  quid  pro  quo; 
nor  can  it  be  made  a  species  of  commercial 
transaction,  nor  a  bargain.  Sabatier  says  some- 
where that  you  cannot  turn  moral  realities  into 
geometrical  quantities.  The  poetic  idea  of  a 
ransom  is  very  beautiful  unless  it  is  pressed  too 
far,  and  when  it  is  pushed  too  far  it  recalls  the 
old  doctrinal  battle  over  the  query,  *'To  whom 
was  the  'ransom'  paid?",  which  Origen  answered 
by  saying  that  it  was  paid' to  the  devil,  while 


32  DIFFICULTIES 

Anselm  said  it  was  paid  to  God;  the  truth  is  of 
course  that  it  was     paid"  to  neither. 

There  are  two  key-words  which  must  be  under- 
stood before  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  can 
be  comprehended,  and  one  of  these  words  is 
"sin",  and  the  other  "vicarious." 

The  sin  sacrifices  of  the  Children  of  Israel 
brought  home  to  their  minds  the  fact  of  sin.  We 
moderns  attempt  to  pass  sin  by,  and  just  in  so 
far  do  we  err.  In  the  classics,  no  phenomenon 
of  moral  history  is  more  striking  than  the  cry  of 
conscience  against  guilt,  and  the  Greek  tragedies 
enforce  the  law  of  retribution  with  the  most 
thorough-going  consistency.  Again,  from  our 
every-day  observation  of  men,  we  know  that  the 
blush  on  the  cheek  is  at  once  a  confession  of  sin, 
and  also  a  promise  of  better  things;  for  if  the 
wrong  act  was  his  act,  the  flush  of  self-condemna- 
tion showing  remorse  is  his  act  too,  and  we  feel 
that  the  man  has  taken  up  sides  against  sin.  Sin 
is  rebellion  against  God,  and  the  one  and  only 
unpardonable  sin  is  a  refusal  to  listen  to  the  voice 
of  conscience,  well-called  God's  vicar  within  us. 
Sin  is  arrested  development:  a  refusal  to  become 
ensouled.  Any  discussion  of  sin  must  necessarily 
open  the  question  as  to  the  so-called  "fall  of 


THE  ATONEMENT  33 

query,  "Did  man  begin  perfect,  or  has  he  climbed 
the  steep  ascent  himself?"  That  is,  did  man 
begin  at  the  top  or  at  the  bottom?  The  ques- 
tions are  somewhat  unfair  because  they  carry 
the  inference  that  there  is  no  alternative  between 
Evolution  and  the  Fall.  The  Bible  does  not  say 
that  man  was  created  physically  perfect;  it  was 
Milton  who  is  largely  responsible  for  this,  and 
also  much  more  bad  theology.  The  biblical 
narrative  throughout  is  the  story  of  an  evolution 
and  a  development,  or  else  a  retrogression.  To 
say  that  man  can  raise  himself  by  his  own  unaided 
effort,  is  to  be  lost  in  the  morass  of  Pelagianism. 
The  old  British  monk  Pelagius  set  man  an  impos- 
sible task.  The  third  chapter  of  Genesis  shows  a 
deterioration,  and  the  story  is  told  in  the  only 
way  that  an  uneducated  people  could  have  under- 
stood it,  and  in  the  same  way  that  children  to-day 
are  instructed  in  fundamental  truths,  i.  e.,  in  a 
poetic  form.  Clement  of  Alexandria  said  that 
man  was  of  "gradual  growth";  Irenaeus  frankly 
stated  that  "initial  perfection  is  contrary  to  law." 
There  is  no  reason  why  there  could  not  have  been 
a  theistic  evolution,  by  which  a  body  was  evolved 
from  lower  forms  of  animal  life;  and  later  on, 
when  this  body  had  been  perfected  by  evolution, 
God  breathed  into  this  evolved  body  the  "breath 


34  DIFFICULTIES 

of  life",  or  in  other  words,  gave  it  a  soul.  Then 
and  there  something  happened  which  at  once 
differentiated  man  from  the  ape.  The  skeleton 
of  the  anthropoid  ape  and  man  are  structurally 
similar,  and  the  thing  that  will  ever  differentiate 
the  man  from  the  ape  is  that  the  man  is  ensouled 
with  more  or  less  of  the  divine  life.  Anthropoid 
became  Anthropos.  From  that  high  estate  of 
white  soul  Adam  fell  by  his  rebellion  against  the 
expressed  will  of  God;  the  identical  thing  happens 
to  us,  for  once  we  had  whiter  souls  than  now,  but 
we  entered,  by  more  or  less  easy  stages,  into 
rebellion  against  Him;  the  story  of  Adam's  fall 
is  a  poetic  form  of  what  happens  to  us,  fo^  we  are 
to-day  far  from  what  we  might  have  been,  and 
have  been  driven  out  from  what  was  designed  to 
be  our  Garden  of  Eden,  because  we  too  rebelled 
and  sinned.  The  "fall  of  man"  separates  man 
from  God,  and  it  is  the  business  of  true  Christian 
theology  to  show  man  the  road  away  from  the 
slavery  and  exile  of  sin,  and  to  place  him  on  his 
way  to  God.  The  first  step  towards  God  can 
be  taken  only  by  those  who  have  in  some  measure 
comprehended  what  sin  is;  short-comings,  negli- 
gences, omissions  and  commissions. 

**It  isn't  the  thing  you  do,  man! 
It's  the  thing  you  leave  un-done 


THE  ATONEMENT  35 

Which  gives  you  a  bit  of  heart-ache 
At  the  setting  of  the  sun!" 

"  The  tender  word  forgotten, 
The  letter  you  didn't  write, 
The  flower  you  might  have  sent,  man, 
Are  the  haunting  sins  at  night!" 

The  Litany,  with  its  refrain,  "Have  mercy 
upon  us,  miserable  sinners",  is  comprehended 
fully  only  by  those  who  realize  their  high  destiny, 
and  also  their  short-comings.  They  understand 
the  word  "sin." 

The  second  key-word  to  unlock  the  meaning 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  is  the  word, 
"vicarious."  In  the  Hall  of  Justice,  Amsterdam, 
is  a  picture  of  a  king  sacrificing  one  of  his  eyes 
to  save  an  eye  of  his  son,  who  had  been  condemned 
to  lose  both  eyes  unless  a  substitute  should  be 
offered.  This  is  vicarious  sacrifice.  Literature 
has  a  multitude  of  examples:  Alcestis  offering 
herself  to  save  her  husband;  Codrus,  the  king, 
when  the  oracle  said  that  victory  would  come  to 
the  nation  whose  king  was  killed  in  the  conflict, 
put  himself  in  the  front  and  fell  among  the  first, 
and  his  nation  conquered;  again  the  romantic 
story  of  Regulus,  praying,  in  his  own  great  city, 
Rome,  as  an  hostage  of  the  Carthaginians,  that 
"Carthage  must  be  destroyed,"  although  he  well 


86  DIFFICULTIES 

knew  that  his  life  would  be  the  first  forfeit; 
Curtius,  springing  full-armed  into  the  earth- 
quake's rent,  on  hearing  that  the  earth  would 
close  up  only  when  the  best  thing  in  Rome  was 
thrown  into  it,  saying  the  best  thing  in  Rome  was 
her  true  soldier;  again  and  again  in  modem  lit- 
erature there  are  illustrations  of  vicarious  suffer- 
ing, and  perhaps  there  is  no  finer,  than  the  story 
of  Jim  Bludso,  the  Mississippi  pilot,  who  steered 
his  burning  steamer  to  the  shore  and  landed  his 
passengers  at  the  cost  of  his  own  Ufe.  The  Tale 
of  Two  Cities  also  reveals  this  divine  element 
in  man,  the  idea  of  vicarious  offering  of  a  life, 
glorifying  even  the  drunkard  who  gave  his  life 
for  a  brother  man.  In  real  life  we  come  upon  this 
vicarious  suffering;  the  firemen's  burns  are  the 
price  for  the  lives  of  others;  brave  little  mothers 
offering  in  daily  sacrifice  their  lives  for  their  little 
ones,  like  the  pelican  plucking  out  its  heart's 
blood  for  its  young.  As  Drummond  wrote, 
"It  is  Creation's  drama."  Vicarious  suffering 
is  the  god-like  quality  in  humanity. 

"Not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain, 
Or  but  subserves  another's  gain. " 

Supposing  that  Christ  had  not  been  crucified, 
what  then?  If  He  had  simply  ascended  from  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration,  or  if  He  had  died  a 


THE  ATONEMENT  37 

natural  death  in  the  Temple  as  one  of  its  priests, 
or  if  He  had  removed  His  school  from  Jerusalem 
to  Alexandria  or  Rome,  He  would  have  been  a 
great  teacher  only.  But  He  did  not  do  this:  He 
said  that  the  Son  of  Man  "must  needs  suffer." 
And  we  are  most  like  Him  when  we  suffer  vica- 
riously for  others,  thus  fulfilling  the  measure  of 
atoning  for  sin — sins  of  others  and  sins  of  our- 
selves. It  is  a  doctrine  full  of  beauty,  dignity 
and  comfort.  The  Old  Testament  promised 
deliverance  and  forgiveness;  the  New  Testament 
fulfills  the  promise  in  a  vicarious,  full,  perfect  and 
sufficient  sacrifice. 

As  God  is  God,  He  cannot  be  otherwise  than 
wrathful  at  sin.  Simple  justice  demands  that 
logically.  Yet,  as  Harnack  says,  **  There  is  an 
inner  law  which  compels  men  to  consider  God  as 
wrathful,  but  when  Christ  descends,  they  see  the 
higher  law  than  pure  justice, — namely,  Mercy.'' 
It  is  the  royal  prerogative.  The  Old  Covenant 
is  of  sin  and  of  punishment;  the  New  Covenant 
is  the  Gospel  of  Pardon.  Amiel  wrote,  that  the 
Gospel  is  the  good  news  of  the  way  to  attain 
God's  favor,  and  this  time  to  retain  it.  St.  John 
stated  God's  affection  for  His  children,  saying 
that  God  did  not  dispense  with  a  propitiation, 
but  provided  one.    The  doctrine  of  the  atone- 


38  DIFFICULTIES 

ment  is  therefore  not  a  needless  piece  of  rescue 
work,  but  an  essential  and  vital  connection 
between  God  and  man.  Phillips  Brooks  likened 
the  doctrine  to  a  bridge  between  heaven  and  earth. 
It  is  the  glory  of  Christianity  that  it  builds  this 
bridge,  and  thus  makes  a  way  home  for  men's 
souls  towards  heaven.  In  our  own  way  and  with 
the  co-operation  of  God,  we  too  have  bridges  of 
atonement  to  construct  between  our  souls  and 
the  peace  we  fain  would  have.  And  as  the  Son 
of  Man  must  needs  suffer,  we  too  must  needs 
suffer,  and  suffer  vicariously,  if  we  would  be  truly 
like  him.  If  we  then  more  fully  grasp  the  mean- 
ing of  the  words  "sin"  and  "vicariousness",  we 
can  the  better  apprehend  the  meaning  of  the 
Atonement. 

Another  of  the  difficulties  of  the  "not-yef 
Christian  are  the  questionings  which  arise  con- 
cerning what  position  he  can  take  as  to  the 
Trinity.  How  can  there  be  such  a  thing  as  three 
in  one  and  yet  one  in  three?  Trinity  and  yet 
Unity? 

He  who  would  escape  mystery  must  cease 
thinking.  But  to  stop  thinking  would  bring 
man  down  to  the  level  of  the  bellows  of  the  black- 
smith— "it  breathes  indeed,  but  cannot  be  said 
to  live."     Conscious  life  is  always  conditioned 


THE  CHURCH'S  MYSTERIES  39 

by  thought,  and  of  all  God's  creatures  it  has  been 
given  to  man  alone  to  be  in  perpetual  thought 
and  research  after  more  knowledge.  Mysteries 
are  met  all  along  the  line  of  advanced  thought, 
but  the  advance  is  steady.  The  astrologers  of 
old  are  the  astronomers  of  to-day;  alchemists  have 
become  chemists;  mesmerists  of  the  last  century 
are  the  experimental  psychologists  of  the  present ; 
yet  one  and  all  of  them  come  upon  data  quite 
beyond  the  grasp  of  the  mind.  Huxley  said  that 
"the  mysteries  of  the  Church  are  child's  play 
compared  to  the  mysteries  and  antinomies  of 
Nature."  The  most  important  of  the  phenomena 
over  which  men  ponder  are  the  mysteries  of 
life  and  death;  we  seek,  and  we  seek  diligently, 
for  an  answer  to  the  problems  physical  and  psy- 
chical. In  one  respect  the  scientists  have  bettered 
the  methods  of  the  religionists,  in  that  they  have 
consistently  pursued  the  course  of  offering  theo- 
ries, and  then  permitting  these  theories  to  stand 
the  criticism  of  time,  the  great  revealer.  On  the 
other  hand,  reUgion  has  had  a  dogmatic  attitude 
thrust  upon  it,  because  of  its  unique  and  peculiar 
growth  in  history.  Many  minds  cannot  accept 
a  theology  given  out  authoritatively,  calling  it 
priestly  tyranny,  ecclesiastical  zealotry,  dogmatic 
formalism,    officious    dictation,    and    the    like. 


40  DIFFICULTIES 

Christianity  should  be  sharply  distinguished  from 
ecclesiasticism,  which  one  Hindu  named  "eccle- 
siasticity"  or  ''churchianity."  Dogmas  should 
be  to  theology  as  theories  are  to  science.  Erro- 
neously writing  CO3  instead  of  COg  doesn't  stop 
the  reaction.  There  are  two  sides  to  the  case, 
and  there  is  much  to  be  said  about  the  menace 
to  liberty  which  man-made  dogmas  might  be; 
but  facts  so  complex  have  a  corresponding  diffi- 
culty in  expression.  The  mere  translation  from 
one  language  to  another  can  never  be  done  with 
precision  and  exactitude,  since  the  very  words 
have  not  the  identical  power,  length  nor  breadth 
in  different  tongues.  Theology  can  but  try  to 
give  the  Gospel  picture,  as  well  as  the  conditions 
allow,  in  fullness  and  in  dignity,  and  then  await 
for  higher  powers,  and  more  perfect  revelation 
and  vision,  in  that  higher  stage  of  development 
towards  which  we  all  are  moving.  Yet,  here  and 
now,  we  all  need  to  think  out  some  workable 
and  working  philosophy  concerning  our  relations 
to  the  mysteries  of  life,  and  the  difficulty  of 
coming  nearer  to  the  centre  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Trinity  is  one  of  these  problems.  What  rational 
explanation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  can 
be  brought  forward  acceptable  to  the  practical 
man,  or  to  a  man  trained  in  the  laboratory,  ex- 


THE  TRINITY  41 

perimental  and  critical  methods  of  our  day? 
Theology  has  volumes  on  the  subject,  but  these 
are  not  available  for  the  average  man,  because  of 
lack  of  time  in  the  men,  and  because  of  abstruse, 
repellent  or  dogmatic  style  in  the  books.  There 
is  no  intent  here  to  bring  forward  any  "new  the- 
ology." The  sole  desire  is  to  state  the  matter 
in  simplest  terms,  in  the  conviction  that  it  is  worth 
the  attempt. 

Assent  is  asked  to  three  general  propositions, 
and  these  are  so  broad  that  Jew  or  Gentile  can 
agree  with  them.  The  first  is  this:  "The  world 
reveals  one  great  spiritual  principle."  As  our 
observing  powers  are  developed  we  see  a  wonder- 
ful world  aroimd  us,  and  we  note  that  it  all  shows 
fore-thought  and  wisdom.  Whatever  line  of 
research  is  followed,  the  real  seeker  after  truth 
finds  a  marvellous  adaptation  to  environment 
for  which  no  mere  chance  can  account.  Our 
mother's  simple  statement  that  God  made  it  all 
satisfies  us  until  the  independent  questioning 
days  come  upon  us,  or  until  inexplicable  events 
arrive  with  their  well-nigh  crushing  load  of 
doubts  and  fears.  In  our  student  days  we  learn 
from  the  biographies  of  the  brainiest  of  our  race 
how  the  intellectual  giants  sought  after  God. 
Justin  said  he  began  as  Stoic,  and  passed  through 


42  DIFFICULTIES 

the  schools  of  Aristotle,  Pythagoras  and  Plato 
to  the  Christ.  Arnold  came  finally  to  find  a 
"stream  or  tendency  in  the  world  which  made  for 
righteousness."  Thus  he  acknowledged  our  prop- 
osition that  the  world  reveals  a  great  spiritual 
principle.  Spencer's  phrase  was  "There  is  an 
infinite  and  eternal  energy  from  which  all  things 
proceed."  "An  inscrutable  existence."  Hart- 
mann's  word  was  "Absolute";  Strauss's  was 
"Universum";  Carlyle's  "Immensities  and  eter- 
nities." Hume,  after  many  years  of  trying  to 
live  as  a  consistent  atheist,  wrote  "Men  without 
religion  are  but  little  removed  from  brutes." 
Shaler  returned  from  negations  after  a  long  tour 
among  them.  Romanes,  the  great  English  natu- 
ralist, declared,  "The  nature  of  man  without  God 
is  miserable.  I  know  from  experience  the  intel- 
lectual distractions  of  scientific  research,  philo- 
sophical speculation,  and  artistic  pleasures — they 
are  all  as  high  confectionery  to  a  starving  man." 
Romanes  was  once  of  the  multitude  who  made  his 
intellect  his  god,  and  believed  the  intellect  to 
be  the  only  organ  of  evidence  to  man;  one  day 
he  discovered  that  by  intellect  alone  he  could  not 
prove  a  mother's  love.  Tolstoy  went  deeper, 
for  he  wrote  that  "each  man  within  himself  is 
conscious  of  a  knowledge  quite  distinct  from  rea- 


THE  TRINITY  43 

soned  knowledge,  and  quite  independent  of  the 
endless  chain  of  cause  and  effect."  So  Tolstoy 
established  man's  certainty  of  God  and  the  soul, 
for  it  is  an  instinctive  knowledge.  The  soul 
has  reasons  that  reason  knows  not  of.  But  it 
was  left  to  Professor  John  Fiske  to  go  deepest  in 
the  analysis,  for  his  position  was  that  each  man 
finds  the  great  spiritual  principle  within  his  own 
self  and  in  his  own  individual  experience.  Like 
tides,  an  un-seen  force  working  from  within  devel- 
ops in  each  man,  and  is  finally  acknowledged. 
Thus  men  of  the  greatest  acumen  accept  the 
proposition  that  the  world  reveals  one  great 
spiritual  principle.  They  may  not  use  our  words, 
but  the  thought  is  identical. 

The  second  proposition,  which  could  be  ac- 
ceded to  by  Jew  or  Gentile,  is  this:  "History  con- 
tains one  ideal  character."  Lecky  stated  it 
thus,  ''It  was  reserved  for  Christianity  to  give 
to  the  world  its  one  ideal  character."  And  he 
further  wrote,  ''Christianity  has  shown  itself 
capable  of  acting  on  all  ages,  conditions,  nations; 
has  done  more  to  regenerate  and  soften  man- 
kind than  the  work  of  all  the  philosophers  and 
morahsts."     ("History  of  Morality,"  ii,  8.) 

We  are  not  now  in  the  field  of  argument  nor 
logic,  nor  anything  that  we  can  find  within  our 


44  DIFFICULTIES 

own  inner  selves,  but  we  are  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  a  fact.  In  establishing  this  fact  we 
are  immeasurably  indebted  to  the  critics.  Their 
attack  on  the  writings  of  St.  Luke  is  typical  and 
illustrative  of  the  great  value  of  their  criticism 
in  bringing  out  the  truth.  In  the  instance  of 
St.  Luke,  the  critics  had  taken  up  the  word  "poli- 
tarch,"  which  they  said  no  one  had  used  of  all 
the  writers  of  that  time;  the  critics  questioned 
the  general  accuracy  of  the  writings  of  the  Apostle 
on  the  principle  oifalsus  in  unofalsus  in  omnibus. 
It  so  happened  that  a  British  consul  chanced  to 
find  this  very  word  "politarch"  carved  in  stone 
as  an  inscription  on  a  certain  old  triumphal  arch 
which  was  being  demolished  to  widen  the  street 
in  the  city  where  the  consul  w^as  stationed;  this 
Englishman  had  been  well  educated  in  sacred 
history  so  that  he  realized  at  once  the  value  of 
the  evidence  of  the  rock;  he  obtained  the  huge 
stone  and  sent  it  to  the  British  Museum,  where 
it  now  is,  close  to  the  main  entrance  within  the 
front  hall.  Thus  St.  Luke  was  corroborated  in 
the  strangest  and  strongest  way,  and  criticism  has 
been  of  inestimable  service  in  strengthening  the 
record.  We  are  to-day  better  able  than  ever 
to  answer  the  oft-made  query,  ''What  think  ye 
of  Christ?"     What  His  enemies  of  His  own  time 


THE  TRINITY  45 

thought  of  Him  is  stronger  as  testimony  than 
what  His  friends  said;  His  enemies,  the  men  of 
Nazareth, asked  whence  His  wisdom,  "that  such 
mighty  works  are  wrought  by  His  hands?  "  They 
acknowledged  that  mighty  works  had  been 
wrought,  and  asked  whence  the  power.  Pilate 
declared  that  He  was  "Just";  and  to  limit  the 
testimony  to  three  witnesses  one  can  add  the 
evidence  of  the  centurion,  "Truly,  this  man  was 
the  Son  of  God."  This  is  more  impressive  testi- 
mony than  that  of  friends.  In  our  own  times  a 
multitude  of  royal  thinkers  have  given  their 
voices  in  answer  to  the  demand  that  is  made  on 
all :  "What  think  ye  of  Christ?"  Pascal  said  that 
Christ  was  the  centre  of  all  and  the  goal  towards 
which  all  tends.  Goethe,  who  tried  for  many 
years  to  dis-believe,  finally  wrote,  "The  Gospels 
are  throughout  true,  durchaus  echt;  let  culture 
advance  as  much  as  it  can  the  human  mind  will 
never  rise  beyond  the  grandeur  and  moral  ele- 
vation of  Christ;  the  law  of  perspective,  which 
governs  time  as  well  as  space,  fails  to  take  one 
cubit  from  His  stature.  The  Gospels  reflect  a 
majesty  the  most  divine  of  anything  ever  on  earth, 
and  Christianity  is  the  mighty  lever  by  which 
degraded  and  suffering  humanity  has  again  and 
again  been  strengthened  to  lift  itself  out  of  the 


46  DIFFICULTIES 

mire."  Secular  statesmanship  cannot  supply  a 
like  force.  Rousseau  said,  "Christianity  is  no 
fiction."  Renan,  "The  divinity  of  Christ  is 
established,  and  He  is  become  the  corner-stone 
of  humanity."  Strauss  declared  that  "He  is 
the  being  without  whose  presence  in  the  mind 
perfect  piety  is  impossible;  He  stands  alone  and 
unapproached  in  history."  At  a  mass  meeting 
in  Berlin,  convened  as  a  protest  to  some  of  the 
advanced  free-thinkers,  a  salutation  from  the 
Kaiser  was  read,  which  began,  "Tell  the  people 
that  the  words  of  Jesus  prove  His  life."  For 
words  are  things,  as  Carlyle  put  it,  and  in  the 
logic  of  history  the  words  of  Jesus  have  been 
crystallized  into  institutions,  and  institutions  are 
facts  which  cannot  be  argued  away.  Harnack 
phrased  the  matter  well  when  he  indited  the 
words,  "Historical  science  has  given  us  an  his- 
torical Jesus  in  lieu  of  an  ecclesiastical  Christ." 
Therefore,  thanks  to  the  critical  science,  our 
Bible  is  stronger  than  ever  before.  Its  felicities 
linger  in  the  eax  like  music  that  cannot  be  for- 
gotten, and  its  phrasings  often  seem  rather  to 
be  things  than  words.  Saga,  myth,  legend,  his- 
tory, biography,  dialogue,  anecdote,  maxims, 
poetry —  all  are  used  in  the  make-up  of  the 
book  of  books — our  Bible.    As  literature  alone 


THE  TRINITY  47 

it    is    slowly,   though    surely,    coming   into   its 
own. 

If  Jesus  of  Nazareth  were  merely  a  man,  and  a 
product,  as  some  Easterns  say,  of  the  educational 
system  of  an  Oriental  or  Parsee  school,  then 
those  same  academic  seats  of  learning  should  be 
able  to  bring  forth  another  who  could  bear  con- 
trast with  the  gentle  Nazarene:  the  very  idea 
seems  sacrilegious,  but  compels  acceptance.  By 
no  flight  of  fancy  can  any  amount  of  education 
give  to  man  like  originality  in  concept  or  audac- 
ity in  plan.  "Never  man  spake  like  this  man." 
His  was  not  a  borrowed  message;  there  was  no 
patch-work,  no  amalgam.  Isolation  of  parts  of 
various  ethnic  creeds  may  show  similarity  in 
part,  and  parallel  columns  may  be  used  to  show 
duplication  of  some  isolated  truths  enshrined  in 
differing  faiths,  but  not  the  whole,  the  basic  idea. 
Any  real  test  of  a  system  is  not  in  the  parts 
but  in  the  whole  as  a  unit.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
matching  threads  in  a  fabric,  but  of  finding  a 
piece  of  fabric  to  equal  Christianity,  or  bear  con- 
trast with  it — contrast  not  in  items  but  in  sys- 
tems. That  there  are  many  grains  of  gold  in 
the  other  religions  is  not  to  be  denied.  Christ's 
system  was  in  ethical  continuity  with  the  moral 
conservation  of  history.     Christianity  bears  close 


48  DIFFICULTIES 

relation  to  recognized  moral  truths.  Confucius, 
Buddha,  Zoroaster,  Plato  did  a  work  in  pre- 
paring a  way;  Christ  brought  the  rehgious  zeal 
of  Judaism  from  the  provincial  up  to  the  univer- 
sal ;  from  a  legal  system  to  a  personal  allegiance, 
and  thus  gave  the  world  a  new  moral  idea  and 
a  new  principle  for  the  creation  of  character. 
Pre-Christian  philosophy,  as  Plato's,  posited  as 
cardinal  virtues  wisdom,  courage,  temperance, 
and  so  exalted  the  intellect  as  proper  ruler  of  the 
commonwealth;  but  Christianity  places  charity, 
i.  e.,  the  heart,  as  the  force,  which,  like  gravitation, 
makes  for  cohesion  and  coherence.  This  was 
original  and  not  a  matter  of  mere  education. 

Personality  is  shown  by  thought  and  action; 
they  are  inter-related:  a  mean  man  cannot  be 
noble  in  action,  nor  can  a  noble  man  be  mean  in 
action;  there  is  harmony  between  the  thought  and 
action,  and  true  nobility  is  evidenced  by  the 
thoughts  and  actions  of  the  personality.  To  judge 
of  any  personality  one  must  know  the  circum- 
stances of  race,  place,  family,  time,  education,  op- 
portunity and  lieutenants;  Jesus  was  of  a  despised 
race,  in  a  vanquished  province,  of  a  laborer's 
family,  at  a  sodden  age,  and  his  own  folk  deemed 
Him  ignorant,  for  they  asked,  "How  knoweth 
this  man  letters,  having  never  learned?"    Yet 


THE  TRINITY  49 

in  three  years*  time,  and  with  **  unlearned  and 
ignorant'*  aids,  He  enunciated  doctrines  which, 
in  the  language  of  those  whose  positions  and 
places  were  jeopardized,  ''turned  the  world  up- 
side down."  Of  those  years  Lecky  wrote,  "The 
record  of  those  three  years  has  done  more  to 
regenerate  mankind  than  all  the  plans  of  the 
statesmen,  and  all  the  sayings  of  the  philoso- 
phers." The  more  one  studies  the  life  of  the 
Messiah  the  greater  the  wonder  becomes.  It  is 
only  a  question  of  time  as  to  when  the  student, 
who  is  fearless  and  fair  and  faithful  in  his  studies 
concerning  the  Christ,  will  become  the  disciple 
of  the  Master,  whom  St.  Paul  declared  to  be  "the 
Son  of  God  with  power."  Thus  the  proposi- 
tion is  proven  that  there  is  in  history  one  ideal 
character. 

The  third  proposition  is  this:  "Human  life 
is  now  pervaded  with  altruism.  *  *  Altruism  means 
"help  the  other  fellow."  The  history  of  sociology 
is  the  story  of  a  steady  increase  in  man's  caring 
for  his  neighbor.  A  better  reply  than  formerly 
is  now  made  to  the  cynical  query,  "Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper?"  Starting  with  the  condition 
of  the  savage,  where,  as  Esau,  "his  hand  was 
against  every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  was 
against  him,"  we  have  now  arrived  at  a  stage  of 


60  DIFFICUITriES 

achievement  when  hospitals  are  built  in  every 
leading  city,  and  charity,  in  its  best  sense,  reaches 
out  her  hand  far  and  wide.  Hospitals  are  erected 
as  Hebrew,  Buddhist  and  Moslem  hospitals,  but 
they  all  owe  their  existence  to  the  altruistic  spirit 
of  Christ,  and  they  are  Christian  in  all  but  name. 
Some  years  ago,  when  votes  were  taken  in  France 
as  to  who  was  her  greatest  man,  Napoleon  headed 
the  Hst;  but  now  Pasteur's  name  leads,  a  savior 
of  life  replacing  the  destroyer.  Hardly  any  biog- 
raphies are  written  to-day,  unless  of  men  who 
have  done  some  great  thing  for  humanity.  The 
line  of  cleavage  between  the  age  when  "might 
made  right, "  and  the  time  when  the  rule  of  charity 
began  to  obtain,  is  very  clearly  marked.  The 
line  of  demarcation  has  a  date  and  this  date  was 
Anno  Domini.  Altruism  began  with  Christ.  Al- 
truism is  quite  contrary  to  human  nature;  it  is 
human  to  look  out  for  "number  one"  primarily. 
It  has  been  said,  "You  cannot  change  human 
nature. "  This  dictum  has  been  reiterated  enough 
to  make  many  people  believe  it,  but  it  is  not  truth. 
Christianity's  aim  and  object  is  to  change  human 
nature,  and  it  does  change  it.  It  began  with  the 
rule  or  order,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself."  Christ's  own  words  were,  "Ye  must 
be  born  again,"  and  it  is  a  new  birth,  and  a  new 


THE  TRINITY  51 

point  of  view  of  life,  to  try  to  esteem  one's  neigh- 
bor as  better  than  one's  self.  A  current  phrase 
of  the  times  is  "The  rights  of  each  and  the  good 
of  all. "  Our  rights  end  where  our  neighbor's  be- 
gin, and  the  voice  of  conscience  is  altruistic,  tell- 
ing us  to  help  those  who  are  over  burdened,  to 
sympathize  with  the  troubled,  and  to  use  a  broader 
charity.  This  is  the  approving  and  reproving 
voice,  described  by  Christ  as  "the  light  within 
you."  The  spirit  of  altruism  gave  political  suf- 
frage generously ,  perhaps  too  generously;  the  spirit 
of  altruism  writes  many  statutes  for  the  protec- 
tion of  labor  and  the  general  good;  the  spirit  of 
altruism  erects  hospitals  and  homes  for  crippled 
children  and  old  people.  We  can  easily  agree 
with  the  proposition  that  human  life  is  pervaded 
with  altruism. 

With  our  three  propositions  what  have  we 
done?  We  have  made  a  God,  we  have  estab- 
lished a  Christ,  and  outlined  an  Holy  Spirit.  We 
have  virtually  accepted  a  Trinity,  enunciated  by 
no  less  a  One  than  our  Master,  who  was  the  first 
to  state  it.  We  have  made  a  Father  to  worship, 
a  Son  to  follow,  a  Holy  Spirit  to  revere.  We  have 
a  Trinity.  Can  this  Trinity  be  a  Unity?  There 
are  many  analogies  in  the  material  world  about 
us,  and  while  the  argument  from  analogy  is  not 


52  DIFFICULTIES 

conclusive,  it  is  an  argument  by  no  means  to  be 
despised.  Every  chemist  finds  a  triplicity  of  sub- 
stance in  an  unity  of  element  in  the  case  of  car- 
bon, for  the  element  carbon  has  three  distinct 
forms — coal,  graphite  and  diamond;  these  three 
forms  are  identical  chemically  and  as  such  a 
unity,  yet  there  is  triplicity  of  substance — coal, 
graphite  and  the  diamond.  Again,  every  physi- 
cist finds  a  trinity  of  phenomena  in  heat,  light 
and  electricity,  and  these  are  simultaneously  a 
unity,  in  being  simply  modes  of  motion;  it  is  a 
mode  of  motion  in  every  case  and  as  such  unity, 
and  yet  there  are  three  appearances,  and  there- 
fore a  trinity.  The  molecule  HgO  known  as 
water  can  be  solid,  liquid  or  gaseous  by  simply 
varying  the  temperature;  a  unity  and  yet  a  trinity 
in  manifestation.  The  familiar  trichotomy  of 
man  as  body,  mind  and  spirit  is  another  illustra- 
tion of  a  unity  which  is  a  trinity;  body  being  the 
objective  self,  mind  the  subjective  self  and  spirit 
being  the  transcendent  self.  It  is  not  safe  to 
dogmatize,  but  the  question  can  be  asked,  whether 
or  not  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  God  as  God, 
God  in  Christ,  and  God  the  Holy  Spirit  in  our- 
selves as  one  and  the  same  unity  ?  In  all  of  us 
is  the  "spark  of  divinity  called  'conscience'"; 
in  the  persons  of  our  household  saints  this  spark 


THE  TRINITY  .63 

of  divinity  burned  so  brightly  that  we  canonized 
them  in  the  sanctuary  of  our  hearts;  we  believe 
it  to  be  true  that  to  *'as  many  as  received  Him,  to 
them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  Sons  of  God"; 
and  we  have  it  on  the  best  authority,  that  by  fol- 
lowing the  Master  we  shall  be  hke  Him,  and 
Christ  said  that  whoso  had  seen  Him  had  seen 
the  Father.  "  God  made  man  in  his  own  image. " 
We  beheve  that  God  was  in  Christ,  and  in  our 
saints,  and  will  also  be  in  our  hearts  to  such  a 
degree  as  we  will  let  Him  come.  God  is  necessary 
to  human  nature,  and  human  natures  are  needed 
by  Him  in  His  cosmos.  We  are  all  Sons  of  God 
potentially,  while  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God 
actually.  Our  earthly  tabernacles  drag  us  down, 
our  souls  would  carry  us  up.  But  we  need  to 
remember  that  our  bodies  are  not  ourselves;  we 
are  not  bodies  merely,  we  have  bodies  but  we  are 
souls.  And  the  essence  of  true  self  is  divine,  and 
we  can  all  in  some  way,  and  to  some  degree, 
show  forth  our  part  of  the  Divine.  Our  real- 
izations are  small,  but  our  potentialities  are 
enormous,  as  children  of  our  Father.  To  form 
our  belief  humbly,  to  state  it  simply,  to  live 
our  creed  charitably — this  shall  be  our  contri- 
bution to  the  religious  life  of  our  day  and  gen- 
eration. 


54  DIFFICULTIES 

Another  difficulty  which  meets  the  earnest 
seeker  after  truth  is  the  difficulty  and  trouble 
with  the  question,  "Do  you  beheve  in  miracles? '* 
Well,  if  by  ''miracles"  is  meant  such  things  as 
the  sun  and  moon  standing  still,  then  it  is  safe  to 
say  '*No."  Nor,  if  by  the  word  ''miracle"  is 
meant  such  a  thing  as  a  man's  being  swallowed 
by  a  whale.  But,  if  by  "miracle"  one  means  the 
creation  of  a  well-ordered  universe  out  of  chaos, 
the  coming  of  life  where  there  was  not  and  could 
not  have  been  any  antecedent  life,  because  the 
world  was  at  white  heat;  if  by  the  word  miracle" 
is  meant  the  wonder  of  the  human  heart  pulsating 
with  what  we  call  life,  or,  again,  if  by  "miracle" 
is  meant  such  a  wonder  as  the  starry  worlds  above 
and  the  moral  law  within,  then  the  average  man 
will  say  that  he  does  believe  in  miracles.  Charles 
Reade  said,  "Once  grant  the  miracle  of  the  cre- 
ation, and  it  is  useless  to  haggle  further. "  We  are 
not  asked  to  beheve  that  the  sun  and  moon  stood 
still,  nor  that  a  whale  swallowed  Jonah,  because 
one  is  the  poetic  license  of  Oriental  imagery,  and 
the  other  is  an  allegory  showing  God's  mercy  and 
forgiveness,  for  it  says,  that  "the  hand  is  stretched 
out  still";  moreover,  the  word  "whale"  cannot 
be  found  in  the  whole  book  of  Jonah,  if  one  clings 
to  mere  literalism.     Imagery  is  typical  of  all 


MIRACLE  65 

Oriental  literature,  and  he  who  forgets  this  blurs 
his  judgment. 

It  is  somewhat  academic,  but  worth  the  while, 
to  state  the  fact  that  the  word  "miracle, '*  as  it  is 
found  in  our  Bibles,  is  a,n  erroneous  translation 
of  the  word  which  should  have  been  translated 
''sign."  Sameion  of  the  original  text  was  un- 
fortunately translated  into  the  Vulgate  by  the 
word  miraculum,  and  this  Latin  word  only  too 
easily  became  transliterated  into  the  word  "mir- 
acle," as  we  now  have  it  in  our  King  James'  ver- 
sion. Sameion  means  a  sign,  power,  or  work, 
and  it  was  error  to  translate  it  as  "miracle." 
To  translate  the  word  "miracle"  back  into  the 
original  language  one  would  employ  the  word 
thaumaj  a  word  from  which  we  derive  our  own 
word  thaumaturgy.  Thaumaturgy,  as  such,  is 
always  condemned  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
Renan  was  never  so  far  from  the  facts,  perhaps, 
as  when  he  said  that  Jesus  was  a  "wonder-worker." 
He  was  not,  and  on  many  occasions  refused  to 
perform  works  which  would  have  been  thauma- 
turgic  only. 

The  definition  of  the  word  "miracle"  used  to 
be,  "something  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature"; 
"  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature. "  But  these 
definitions  soon  get  out  of  date,  because  we  are 


56  DIFFICULTIES 

all  the  time  enlarging  our  knowledge  of  the  laws 
of  nature.  The  telephone  would  be  a  miracle  to 
our  grandfathers,  and  a  ** wireless"  would  have 
been  a  miracle  to  us  ten  years  ago.  The  truth  is 
that  we  never  seem  to  be  able  to  get  the  last  word 
concerning  the  laws  of  nature,  and  so  what  might 
be  called  a  miracle  to-day  may  become  common 
enough  in  the  course  of  a  few  years.  Some  others 
have  defined  a  miracle  as  something  "outside 
normal  experience."  But  according  to  this,  ice 
would  be  a  miracle  to  a  Hottentot.  So  that  def- 
inition fails  at  once.  A  more  moderate  defini- 
tion is  this,  that  a  miracle  is  the  "invasion  of  one 
sphere  of  knowledge  by  facts  belonging  to  an 
higher  sphere."  To  this  category  belong  such 
cures  as  a  physician  effects  when  he  inoculates  a 
patient  with  germs  which  kill  the  disease.  The 
word  has  been  used  too  broadly  ever  again  to  be 
restricted;  nevertheless,  however  we  conceive  of 
the  word,  there  are  few  who  would  deny  that  the 
creation  of  our  solar  system  was  something  strictly 
miraculous;  that  the  coming  of  life  to  our  planet, 
which  was  once  a  red-hot  mass,  where  there  could 
not  have  been  antecedent  life,  was  a  miracle. 
More  than  that,  the  coming  of  the  moral  law 
within  each  human  heart  is  miraculous.  These 
are  immediately  present  facts.     We  can  call  them 


MIRACLES  57 

by  whatever  name  we  please,  but  the  wonder  still 
remains.  That  we  live  in  the  immediate  presence 
of  miracles,  using  the  word  in  the  wide  sense,  is  not 
to  be  denied.  The  only  real  discussion  is  as  to 
the  "how"  these  things  can  be;  "Behold  the  lihes 
of  the  field,  how  they  grow. " 

"  From  the  mold  as  murk  as  night, 
Lo,  the  lilies  stainless  white! 

From  the  mollusc's  cell  obscure, 
Lo,  the  pearl's  perfection  pure! 

From  the  nest-egg,  dumb  so  long, 
Lo,  a  mounting  flame  of  song! 

Unto  the  discerning  eye, 
Miracles  are  ever  nigh!" 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  God  used  evolution  to 
create  our  physical  frames.  There  is  nothing  nec- 
essarily atheistic  in  evolution;  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  theistic  evolution.  The  real  question  is, 
"How  did  it  start?"  Evolution  will  only  evolve 
something  when  there  is  something  upon  which  to 
coDomence.  Darwin  in  the  ''Origin  of  Species"  says : 
"Give  me  a  few  germs,  and  I  will  show  you  how 
the  wondrous  furniture  of  the  earth  has  evolved;" 
just  as  Florida  moss  grows  and  ornaments  the  trees 
after  it  once  has  the  germ  plant.  You  cannot 
make  something  out  of  nothing.     Whence  the  ori- 


58  DIFFICULTIES 

gin  of  the  moral  law  within  each  human  heart? 
What  makes  the  blush  on  the  cheek  of  the  youth 
when  he  practices  his  first  deception?  Channing 
said  that  the  rejection  of  miracles  was  the  rejec- 
tion of  Christianity.  Kant  wrote  that  there  were 
two  things  before  which  he  stood  confounded,  and 
one  was  the  starry  world  above  and  the  other  was 
the  moral  law  within — both  of  them  miracles. 

At  Easter-tide  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  the 
most  stupendous  and  momentous  of  miracles,  the 
miracle  of  The  Resurrection.  Without  it,  as  St. 
Paul  wrote,  his  preaching  would  be  vain  and  our 
faith  vain.  Strauss  said  that  the  resurrection 
was  the  unconditional  antecedent  without  which 
Christianity  could  have  had  no  existence.  Now 
one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  fact  of  the  res- 
urrection is  this,  that  it  cannot  be  denied  with- 
out making  a  permanent  gap  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  It  is  as  a  stone  in  a  solid  wall,  held  in 
place  by  the  firm  masonry  of  later  events  which 
cannot  in  their  turn  be  denied.  We  know  of 
Jesus  as  we  know  of  Caesar,  and  no  rational  ac- 
count of  the  acknowledged  certain  data  of  the 
history  of  the  world  can  be  given,  except  that 
which  takes  into  account  those  two  characters  in 
history.  No  one  rises  up  with  a  theory  that 
Caesar  did  not  live,  and  then  tries  to  write  a  his- 


MIRACLES  50 

tory  of  the  world  without  him;  no  one  denies  that 
Caesar  built  roads  across  Europe,  and  perhaps  in 
Britain;  neither  can  anyone  reasonably  deny  that 
one  Jesus  of  Nazareth  lived,  and  that  He  made  the 
one  and  only  highway  for  weary  souls — a  high- 
way that  ever  leads  upwards  in  cheer  and  hope 
towards  peace.  Renan  said  that  to  take  Christ 
from  history  would  be  to  rend  history  from  its 
foundations.  The  influence  of  Christ  can  be  fol- 
lowed through  history,  as  a  river  on  a  map  can 
be  traced  to  its  source.  Between  the  crucifixion 
and  the  first  Easter  Day  the  disciples  were  scat- 
tered fugitives,  but  after  that  first  Easter,  those 
same  fugitives  became  absolutely  dauntless. 
Something  had  happened,  and  the  only  reasonable 
explanation  is  found  in  what  they  claimed  had 
happened,  namely,  a  Resurrection  of  their  Master. 
The  events  which  immediately  followed  establish 
the  resurrection,  since  logically  the  body  of  the 
Savior  would  have  been  produced  by  the  viru- 
lent antagonists  had  they  been  able  to  do  so;  or, 
if  the  alternative  supposition  is  made,  namely, 
that  the  disciples  ''stole  away  the  body,"  the  im- 
possible assumption  must  be  made  that  the  apos- 
tles and  disciples  were  partners  in  the  most  gigantic 
fraud  imaginable.  That  ''unlearned  and  igno- 
rant men"  perpetrated  such  a  thing,  and  then  one 


60  DIFFICULTIES 

and  all  of  them  became  endued  with  such  moral 
courage  as  to  face  martyrdoms  of  the  cruellest 
sort  is  simply  unthinkable  !  The  very  logic  of  the 
calendar  establishes  the  fact  of  the  resurrection, 
for,  had  the  crucifixion  of  their  Master  terminated 
His  career,  the  disciples  would  have  naturally 
settled  on  Friday  as  the  day  to  be  kept  in  commem- 
oration of  Him;  unless  a  resurrection  really  hap- 
pened on  that  first  Easter  Sunday,  then  nothing 
at  all  happened,  and  there  is  no  reasonable  cause 
assignable  for  taking  Sunday  as  the  day  for  com- 
memorating their  Master;  yet  Sunday  became  the 
r^d  day,  and  the  Christian  world  has  followed 
these  early  disciples.  The  logic  of  history  compels 
acceptation  of  the  fact  and  the  miracle.  The 
life  of  Christ  itself  is  a  miracle,  and  the  more  one 
studies  that  life  the  more  marvellous  it  becomes. 
The  wisest  of  the  earth,  even  those  who  have  tried 
the  hardest  to  disbelieve,  come  surely,  although 
slowly,  towards  a  full  acceptation  of  the  fact  and 
the  miracle.  Someone  said  ''that  it  would  be  a 
miracle  if  there  were  no  miracles."  We  should 
never  be  afraid  to  say  ^*  I  do  not  know  how  it  was, " 
for  it  is  not  meant  that  we  should  be  able  to  ex- 
plain how  miracles  are  wrought;  we  cannot  tell 
how  a  tree  grows,  nor  can  we  explain  how  the  spir- 
itual forces  act;  we  cannot  even  formulate  the  law 


MIRACLES  61 

of  gravitation  without  using  terms  quite  beyond 
the  understanding.  The  resurrection  body  is  be- 
yond the  grasp  of  our  minds,  and  it  is  doubtless 
well  for  us  that  we  do  not  know  now  those  ap- 
proaching new  conditions,  since  to  know  them 
fully  would  either  make  us  unhappy  to  stay  here 
longer,  or  else  more  fearful  to  go  forward.  We  can- 
not but  believe  in  miracles,  first  the  primal  cosmic 
miracle,  then  the  miracle  of  the  moral  law  within 
each  soul,  and  the  miracle  of  the  First  Easter. 

We  can  go  even  a  step  further,  for  when  we 
recall  the  biographies  of  those  whose  careers  have 
been  wholly  made  anew  and  resurrected  in  a 
marvellous  way  by  the  power  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
the  Christ,  we  can  see  that  the  day  of  miracles 
is  not  entirely  past.  For  example,  the  Hfe  of  John 
B.  Gough,  whose  life  was  lifted  by  the  resurrection 
power  of  the  life  of  the  Master,  and  raised  from 
the  lowest  carnal  state  to  be  a  strong  witness 
to  prove  Christ's  power.  A  multitude  of  others 
have  had  their  lives  transformed,  transfigured  and 
resurrected  by  the  power  of  Christianity.  When 
we  see  such  lives,  redeemed  by  His  power,  we  can 
reverently  pray,  as  did  that  dear  old  poet  of  the 
North,  Dr.  Bonar,  who,  when  he  was  asked  about 
miracles  and  whether  he  believed  in  them,  said, 
"Yes,  and,  please  God,  grant  one  more  miracle, 


62  DIFFICULTIES 

namely,    that    He    will    make    of   mc    a   good 
man.  *' 

Our  difficulties  with  doctrines  only  serve  to 
bring  into  prominence  their  beauty  and  their 
depth,  just  as 

''Only  the  prismas  obstruction  shows  aright 
The  secret  of  the  sunbeam,  breaks  its  light 
Into  the  jewelled  bow  from  blankest  white." 

— Browning, 


CHAPTER  III 

CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

"I  say,  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ, 
Accepted  by  the  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it. 
And  has  so  far  advanced  thee  to  be  wise." 

— Browning. 

Christianity  produces  civilization  in  a  nation, 
preserves  the  family,  and  gives  peace  to  the  indi- 
vidual. Admiral  Uriu  said  that,  "Christianity 
produces  civilization,"  and,  continuing,  he  de- 
clared, "I  do  not  attempt  to  explain  it,  but  I  see 
the  effect,  I  recognize  the  cause,  and  so  I  covet  for 
Japan  this  power  of  Christianity.*' 

Marquis  Ito  is  sometimes  quoted  as  a  leader 
of  the  Far  East  who  said  that  it  was  unnecessary 
for  a  nation  to  have  a  religion.  But  later  in  his 
career  he  acknowledged  that  he  had  made  a  mis- 
take, for  he  wrote,  that  although  he  "at  first  be- 
lieved it  quite  unnecessary  for  a  nation  to  have 
any  religion, "  he  altered  his  opinion,  saying  that 
"the  only  true  civilization  rests  upon  Christian 
principles."  (Gulick,  288.)  Christianity  is  the 
basis  of  all  progress  and  the  root  of  all  the  finer 


64  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

and  purer  civilization,  bringing  heaven  nearer 
earth  and  earth  nearer  heaven. 

Count  Okuma  lately  said,  "the  fatal  defect  in 
the  teaching  of  the  great  sages  of  Japan  and  China 
is  that,  while  they  deal  with  virtue  and  morals, 
they  do  not  sufficiently  dwell  on  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man,  and  any  nation  that  neglects  the 
spiritual,  though  it  may  flourish  for  a  time,  must 
eventually  decay."  And  then  the  Count  goes 
on  to  add  this  conclusion,  which  seems  almost 
startling  coming  from  a  Japanese,  "The  origin  of 
modern  civilization  is  to  be  found  in  the  teachings 
of  the  Sage  of  Judea,  by  whom  alone  the  neces- 
sary moral  dynamic  is  supplied. "  This  spiritual 
side  is  common  to  all  humanity.  Confucius  neg- 
lected it,  and  gave  as  religion  simply  a  system  of 
morals,  consequently,  the  Chinaman  of  to-day, 
feeling  the  need  of  imagery  and  a  spiritual  side 
of  his  nature,  is  not  alone  Confucian,  but  Taoist 
and  Buddhist  simultaneously,  for  these  other  "re- 
ligions" supply  his  human  demand  for  the  supra- 
world. 

President  Taft,  in  Carnegie  Hall,  used  the  words, 
"No  man  can  study  the  movement  of  modern 
civilization  from  an  impartial  stand-point,  and 
not  realize  that  Christianity  and  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  are  the  only  basis  for  the  hope  of 


BAD  CHRISTIANS  AND  GOOD  SCEPTICS  65 

modern  civilization  and  the  growth  of  popular 
self-government. " 

James  Russell  Lowell,  one  of  our  greatest  rep- 
resentatives at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  expressed 
his  fine  scorn  for  those  who,  having  benefited  from 
Christian  civilization,  were  now  ready  to  throw 
down  the  very  ladder  by  which  had  been  made  the 
steep  ascent  towards  heaven.  Speaking  at  one 
of  the  banquets  in  London,  he  said,  "When  the 
scoffers  find  a  place  on  this  planet  ten  miles  square 
where  life  is  safe,  woman  honored,  and  old  age 
respected  without  the  civilizing  influence  of  the 
rehgion  which  proclaims  a  crucified  and  risen 
Lord,  then  and  there  will  be  the  time  and  place 
for  them  to  ventilate  their  views. " 

He  further  said  that  the  world  was  sustained 
by  an  enormous  mass  of  religious  feeling  and  re- 
ligious conviction,  which  gives  a  certain  moral 
direction  to  our  characters.  It  is  this  "enormous 
mass  of  religious  feehng  and  conviction"  which 
upholds  many  who  are  open  sceptics.  The 
avowed  sceptics  are,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
maintained  by  Christian  morality,  while  some 
professed  Christians  fall  short  of  the  ethics  of  their 
fore-bears,  so  that  not  infrequently  our  Oriental 
visitors  are  puzzled  by  the  phenomenon  of  bad 
Christians  and  good  sceptics;  nevertheless,  the 


66  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

origin  of  the  good  sceptic's  code  of  honor  is  Chris- 
tian, and  the  origin  of  the  bad  Christian's  lapse  in 
ethics  is  simply  a  "reversion  to  type"  of  the  ani- 
mal, against  which  lapses  true  Christianity  alone 
gives  the  power  to  fight  successfully.  Lowell 
said  that  "Good  sceptics  condemning  Christian- 
ity are  like  spies  from  Canaan  bringing  on  their 
shoulders  good  fruit."  Carlyle  wrote  that  "A 
certain  after-glow,  or  Nachscheiriy  of  Christianity 
withheld  me  from  suicide."  Bad  Christians  are 
simply  an  indirect  plea  for  the  goodness  of  right 
Christians.  The  horrors  of  the  Inquisition  and 
the  fires  of  Smithfield  are  deeds  unknown  to  the 
Christianity  of  Christ.  Froude  wrote  that  "the 
best  advocates  of  Christianity  are  the  quiet  and 
humble  lives  passed  in  the  sunshine  of  Christian- 
ity." Sir  Humphry  Davy's  words  were,  "Firm 
religious  belief  is  to  be  preferred  to  every  other 
blessing,  for  it  makes  hfe  a  good  discipline,  it 
creates  new  hopes  when  earthly  hopes  vanish, 
and  it  throws  a  most  gorgeous  light  over  our  ex- 
istence." Christianity  has  results  to  offer,  and 
"by  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them. "  In  one  of 
his  speeches  Webster  described  Christianity  as 
"purifying  the  soul,  touching  the  heart,  improv- 
ing the  man. "  It  does  so  in  the  man,  the  family 
and  in  the  Nation. 


OUR  RED,  BROWN  AND  YELLOW  PROBLEMS  67 

As  a  Nation  we  have  our  problems  to  meet,  and 
it  is  Christianity  alone  which  will  solve  them. 
Christianity  is  the  sole  source  for  the  ''healing 
of  the  nations. "  We  had,  and  we  yet  have,  our 
red  problem,  the  Indian.  Grievously  have  we 
failed  in  it,  and  we  have  failed  because  most  un- 
christian methods  have  been  pursued.  Wherever 
Christian  ideas  were  kept  in  view,  as  in  the  case  of 
William  Penn,  the  red  man  was  not  only  not  a 
danger,  but  a  positive  element  of  strength.  In 
Canada  and  in  the  English  West  Indies  greater 
wisdom  has  been  shown,  and  the  problem  has 
not  been  so  acute  as  with  us.  Again  we  have  a 
black  problem,  and  here  again  it  is  becoming  in- 
creasingly evident  that  the  Christian  method 
blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes.  Our 
brown  problem  in  the  Philippines  is  being  met 
with  much  more  Christian  spirit  than  any  other 
of  our  race  questions,  and  it  rejoices  the  heart  of 
those  who  love  their  country  to  read  that  several 
thousand  teachers  are  being  employed  in  the  is- 
lands. Lastly  we  have  the  great  yellow  problem, 
and  the  yellow  peril  may  be  our  golden  opportu- 
nity, if  only  Christian  methods  are  pursued.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  Christianity  will  be  well  estab- 
lished in  China  before  that  wonderful  country 
reaches  a  stage  in  her  rapid  development  which  a 


68  CHRISTIANITY   THE  CIVILIZER 

successful  war  would  produce,  namely  a  stage 
when  a  nation  becomes  inaccessible  to  ideas  from 
without,  owing  to  sudden  and  exaggerated  self- 
respect.  That  China  is  rapidly  coming  to  self- 
consciousness  is  evident  to  any  traveller  who 
visits  that  great  country,  and  gets  a  few  first- 
hand views  of  the  military  drilling  of  Chinese 
boys  in  every  school.  Our  time  in  China  may  be 
short,  and  we  need  to  make  the  most  of  our  present 
large  opportunities.  It  is  potentially  a  very  rich 
country,  and  will  become  such  actually  when  the 
Chinese  people  work  their  mines,  and  get  above 
their  present  fear  of  disturbing  the  dragons  which 
the  ignorant  believe  live  in  the  ground.  They  are 
intensely  patriotic,  and  one  hears  everywhere 
the  doctrine,  "China  for  the  Chinese."  But  we 
can  give  them  Christianity,  and  they  are  now 
ready  to  take  it  at  our  hands,  for  they  see  what 
Christianity  has  done  for  other  nations,  and  their 
leaders  have  no  hesitation  in  answering  the  ques- 
tion, "What  is  the  good  of  Christianity?"  The 
Chinese  give  generously  to  the  Christian  schools 
and  hospitals.  They  are  proud,  and  have  a  right 
to  be  so,  for  they  were  educated  in  many  Hues 
long  before  the  Christian  era,  and  their  ancestors 
wore  silks  at  the  time  when  the  early  Britons  were 
dressed  in  skins.    Printing  was  known  in  China 


THE  GOOD  OF  MISSIONS  69 

before  Gutenberg,  and  long  ago  they  knew  how- 
to  make  gunpowder.  The  keen  Chinese  mind 
now  sees  clearly  that  other  nations  of  the  world 
have  advanced  while  his  nation  remained  as  though 
crystallization  had  set  in;  they  see  even  more 
clearly  than  we  do  the  influence  and  the  power 
of  Christianity.  It  is  our  duty  not  merely  to 
teach  Christianity,  but  to  practice  it.  Secre- 
tary Hay's  name  is  highly  honored  in  China,  be- 
cause he  took  firm  stand  for  the  right  and  for 
Christian  dealings  with  the  great  Chinese  nation; 
the  return  of  the  excess  of  the  indemnity  fund 
collected  at  the  close  of  the  Boxer  movement  of 
1900  is  an  example  of  what  a  Christian  nation 
can  and  ought  to  do;  by  teaching  and  by  practis- 
ing Christianity  towards  the  Chinese,  we  can 
establish  a  sure  foundation,  upon  which  can  be 
built  commercial  and  social  relations  which  will 
redound  to  the  benefit  of  both  peoples.  Our  un- 
generous treatment  of  the  Chinese  at  our  fron- 
tiers will  not  always  be  tolerated  by  an  enlight- 
ened public  opinion,  which  is  sure,  in  the  long  run, 
to  do  justice.  The  laws  as  to  visiting  Chinese 
gentlemen  should  be  generously  amended  for  our 
own  sake. 

There  are,  and  always  have  been,  those  who 
question  the  good  of  missions  and  missionaries. 


70  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

It  needs  an  answer  by  one  who  knows  the  situ- 
ation at  first  hand,  and  it  will  be  allowed  that 
President  Taft  is  a  competent  witness.     He  says 
that  before  he  went  out  to  the  Philippines  as 
Governor,    he    himself   was   greatly   prejudiced 
against  missionaries,  but  after  he  had  come  into 
direct  contact  with  the  work  done  in  the  Chris- 
tian missions, he  could  say,  "The  missionary  is  the 
hope  of  civilization."     "I  have  heard  missions 
criticized"  (thus   says  the  President);   "l  have 
heard  men  say  that  they  would  not  contribute  to 
foreign  missions  at  all;  that  we  have  wicked  people 
enough  at  home,  and  we  might  just  as  well  leave 
the  foreign  natives  and  savages  to  pursue  their 
own  happy  lives  in  the  forests,  and  look  after  our 
own  who  need  a  great  deal  of  ministration.    I 
have  come  to  regard  that  as  narrow  minded.     The 
man  who  says  it  is  one  who  does  not  understand 
the  things  which  God  has  provided  for  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  human  race.     The  missionaries  are 
the  forerunners  of  our  civilization,  and  without 
them  we  would  have  no  hope  of  courting  the  love 
and  the  admiration  and  the  respect  of  the  miUions 
of  people  that  we  hope  to  bring  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Christian  civilization. "    Darwin  also  bore 
his  testimony  to  the  good  work  of  the  mission- 
aiies,  for  although  he  at  first  scorned  the  idea 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIALISM  71 

that  any  good  could  come  from  working  among 
the  savages  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  he  gave  his  wit- 
ness to  their  complete  moral  transformation  and 
he  ultimately  became  a  contributor  to  the  mission. 
He  said,  "The  lesson  of  the  missionary  is  that  of 
the  enchanter's  wand."  It  is  certain  that  no 
force  other  than  Christianity  removed  the  slave 
market  in  a  city  of  Zanzibar,  and  erected  on  its 
site  a  church.  The  relation  of  Christianity  to  a 
government  is  thus  spoken  of  by  that  leader  of 
India,  Keshub  Chunder  Sen:  "Christianity  and 
not  the  British  Government  is  the  force  with  which 
England  can  hold  India.  It  is  more  powerful 
than  secular  statesmanship  in  holding  hereditary 
heathendom."    Christianity  upholds  the  flag. 

The  good  of  Christianity  in  sociology  can  be 
stated  by  a  quotation  from  Max  Gohre,  who,  in 
his  book,  "Three  Months  as  Factory  Hand," 
says,  "There  is  alienation  among  work  people 
from  conventional  religion;  Social  Democrats  es- 
teem and  reverence  the  Christ  of  history,  but  not 
the  Christ  of  theology. "  This  is  at  once  a  warn- 
ing and  a  prophecy,  and  it  holds  the  remedy  within 
itself.  The  warning  is  that  new  wine  cannot 
be  put  into  old  bottles,  and  the  prophecy  is  that 
we  are  on  the  way  back  to  the  Master  and  His 
way.    The  remedy  is  simply  "Back  to  Christ," 


72  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

and  it  is  a  plea  for  a  simpler  religion,  such  as  the 
Master  enunciated,  and  one  which  the  very  chil- 
dren could  accept.  In  time,  when  the  co-oper- 
ative shall  have  supplanted  the  competitive  sys- 
tem, we  shall  be  nearer  the  City  of  God.  Another 
boon  that  Christianity  has  brought  into  the 
science  of  sociology  is  a  doctrine  which  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  the  accepted  doctrine,  namely, 
that  wealth  is  given  to  some  as  trustees  for  others. 
The  ever-increasing  number  of  hospitals,  and 
other  altruistic  and  benevolent  institutions,  show 
that  men  of  means  are  not  forgetful  of  their  fellow- 
men.  In  this  way  the  relation  of  class  versus 
mass  is  ameliorated,  and  a  sociological  improve- 
ment is  effected.  ^ 

Another  field,  and  one  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance, is  the  family.  The  influence  of  Christianity 
in  the  family  is  protective  and  preservative  be- 
yond all  other  powers.  One  of  the  princes  of 
India,  educated  in  England,  said  that  the  most 
wonderful  thing  he  saw  in  England  was  the 
family.  There  was  nothing  in  India,  he  said, 
that  would  compare  with  it.  Nor  is  there  any- 
thing like  it  in  all  the  world,  excepting  only  those 
places  where  Christianity  has  gone  before  and 
elevated  woman  and  the  man  to  family  life  It 
is  the  coherent  force  against  trial,  temptation  and 


AMONG  RICH  AND  AMONG  POOR         73 

the  little  rifts  of  misunderstanding  which  other- 
wise break  the  charmed  circle.  With  a  loss  or  a 
weakening  of  Christianity  in  the  home,  brought 
about  by  thoughtless  jokes  upon  sacred  themes 
which  the  children  take  seriously,  there  comes  a 
sure  disintegration  in  the  family,  and  none  can 
tell  how  far  the  gangrene  may  not  reach.  This 
loss  of  psychic  power  is  needed  by  the  rich  families 
even  more  than  by  those  in  what  is  called  "moder- 
ate circumstances."  It  is  not  true  that  'Hhe 
poor  alone  shall  be  saved."  The  beatitude 
about  the  poor  in  spirit  is  sometimes  construed 
to  mean  blessed  are  the  poor  and  unblest  are  the 
rich;  but  there  is  nothing  less  poor  in  spirit  than 
a  poor  man  when  proud.  As  Canon  Gore  wrote, 
''Not  all  poor  are  blessed,  for  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  to  be  selfish,  grasping  and  avaricious,  and 
yet  poor."  The  difference  between  a  rich  poor 
man  and  a  poor  rich  man  is  that  in  the  one  case 
the  man  possesses  riches,  and  in  the  other  case 
the  man  is  possessed  by  them.  It  is  the  old  story 
of  the  drowning  man  literally  dragged  under  the 
water  by  the  gold  in  his  pocket.  The  vital  ques- 
tion is,  "Is  there  detachment,  so  that  the  man 
would  still  be  a  man  with  or  without  his  money?  " 
It  is  safe  for  a  man  to  have  money  only  when  he 
could  easily  do  without  it.     In  the  Master  there 


74  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

was  perfect  detachment,  for  he  emptied  himself, 
taking  the  form  of  a  servant.  *' Woe  to  the  rich" 
means  those  who  put  their  trust  in  riches  and  de- 
pend upon  them  for  happiness.  Dives  was  con- 
demned not  because  he  was  rich,  but  because, 
though  rich,  he  was  indifferent  to  the  needy  poor. 
The  servant  who  hid  his  lord's  money  was  con- 
demned because  he  was  inefficient  as  to  increasing 
the  money  entrusted  to  him.  The  admonition 
against  laying  up  riches  is  a  warning  against 
hoarding  money,  not  against  using  it.  Hoarding 
of  riches  is  to  this  day  dangerous  in  parts  of  the 
Near  East.  The  rich  fool  was  a  fool  because  he 
could  see  nothing  better  to  do  with  abundant 
crops  than  to  store  them  up  in  barns.  Christian- 
ity has  much  to  offer  to  meet  the  problem  of  being 
rich  and  yet  Christ's.  We  see,  near  at  hand,  those 
who  choose  not  of  the  realm  of  the  spirit,  but  the 
things  of  the  earth,  and  we  can  often  feel  how 
metallic  they  become,  as  metallic  as  their  gold  and 
silver.  Browning  thus  speaks  of  one  who  chose 
the  lower  good, 

"You  chose  the  earth — well, 
Take  it.     Thou  art  now  shut  out  of  the 

Heaven  of  Spirit. 
Hads't  thou  learned  what  God  accounted 

happiness, 
How  hard  may  be  this  punishment. " 


IN  THE  FAMILY  75 

The  ancient  proverb  runs,  ''They  must  have 
strong  feet  who  can  support  prosperity."  Chris- 
tianity gives  strength  to  those  who  are  most 
severely  tempted  in  our  free  country,  where  the 
law  of  entailments  runs  not  to  protect  an  impru- 
dent son.  It  is  Christianity  alone  which  gives 
the  power  to  resist  the  atmosphere,  than  which 
none  is  so  corrosive  and  mephitic  as  extreme 
wealth  and  luxury.  The  lips  which  frequently 
say  ''Lead  us  not  into  temptation"  will  surely 
be  "delivered  from  evil";  and  the  tongue  that 
speaks  the  words  "Forgive  us  our  trespasses" 
will  be  the  more  ready  to  "forgive  them  that 
trespass."  The  good  of  Christianity  in  family 
life  is,  that  it  gives  a  strange  psychic  power  to  the 
rich  or  the  poor  families,  and  if  consistently  tried 
would  end  the  heartache  of  divorce. 

But  the  good  of  Christianity,  the  "Cm  Bonof^' 
is  made  supremely  evident  by  noting  what  it  can 
do  for  the  individual.  It  makes  men.  Over  and 
over  again,  the  source  of  power  in  the  lives  of  men 
is  to  be  found  in  Christianity.  Goethe  said  that 
Christianity  was  a  mighty  lever,  by  which  de- 
graded and  suffering  humanity  had  again  and 
again  lifted  itself  from  the  mire.  Geography  pre- 
serves the  names  of  many  explorers  and  mission.- 
aries  in  our  land:  Marquette,  Joliette,  LaSalle, 


76  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

Champlain,  and  the  lives  of  many  others  whose 
biographies,  Hke  that  of  the  missionary  priest 
Brebeuf,  read  Hke  purest  romance.  Livingstone, 
Gordon,  Patterson,  and  a  host  of  others.  What 
impelUng  power,  other  than  the  desire  to  spread 
the  Gospel,  has  been  able  to  send  men  to  such 
remote  corners  of  the  earth?  We  can,  after  re- 
calling these  heroic  lives,  agree  with  the  text, 
"To  as  many  as  believed  on  Him,  to  them  gave 
He  power  to  become  Sons  of  God."  It  is  the  re- 
deeming, transforming,  transfiguring  force  in  the 
lives  of  men.  The  grave  of  Livingstone,  in  the 
centre  aisle  of  Westminster,  bears  in  large  letters 
the  word  "  Missionary. "  The  inscription  on  Gen- 
eral Gordon's  monument  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  is, 
**Who  gave  his  strength  to  the  weak,  his  wealth 
to  the  poor,  his  heart  to  God."  Such  men  are 
Sons  of  God,  and  made  so  by  the  same  power 
which  gave  St.  Stephen  the  "face  as  of  the  face 
of  an  angel."  Joseph  Parker  said  that  the  face 
is  made  every  day  by  its  morning  prayer,  and  by 
its  morning  look  out  of  the  windows  which  open 
upon  heaven.  Another  wrote  that  it  was  not  our 
fault  if  we  were  bom  homely,  but  that  it  was  our 
fault  if  we  did  not  have  a  face  of  good  cheer  and 
hope  when  old.  It  is  the  miracle  of  the  transfigu- 
ration, wrought  by  the  power  of   Christianity. 


THE  WORLD'S  SPIRITUAL  SUNRISE       77 

The  Talmud  gives  a  legend  of  an  angel  with  a 
flaming  sword,  who  told  Adam,  when  he  went 
away  from  Eden,  ''Bring  back  the  face  which  God 
gave  you  first,  and  you  can  re-enter. "  We  also 
have  this  to  do,  and  our  religion  is  the  only  power 
which  will  help  us.  King  Stephen,  defeated  by 
the  Turks,  turned  back  towards  the  city  which 
his  mother  was  guarding,  but,  seeing  her  son  ap- 
proaching as  a  fugitive,  she  ordered  the  city  gates 
kept  closed  against  him,  and  sent  him  the  mes- 
sage, "You  cannot  enter  here  except  as  con- 
queror.'* The  same  message  comes  to  us, 
and  like  Stephen  we  turn  again  to  the  battle, 
and,  like  him,  we  some  day  hope  to  return  as 
conquerors. 

Christianity  is  the  basis  of  civilization  in  the 
nation,  the  corner-stone  of  the  family,  and  the 
one  and  only  power  which  can  make  of  men  Sons 
of  God,  with  faces  as  the  face  of  an  angel,  return- 
ing home  as  conquerors.  It  saves  man  from  every- 
thing he  has  to  fear,  and  gives  him  everything  for 
which  he  has  to  hope:  it  is  the  world's  spiritual 
sunrise. 


To  love  some  one  more  dearly  every  day: 
To  help  a  wandering  child  to  find  his  way : 
To  ponder  o'er  a  noble  thought,  and  pray 
And  smile  when  evening  falls. 


78  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CIVILIZER 

"To  follow  truth  as  blind  men  search  for  light; 
To  do  my  best  from  dawn  of  day  till  night: 
To  keep  my  heart  fit  for  His  holy  sight, 
And  answer  when  he  calls." 

M.  L.  Ray. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

"Wounded?    I  know  it,  my  brother, 
Sorrow  hath  pierced  thy  heart; 
Patience!     In  silent  endurance 
Play  thou  the  hero's  part. 

"Brother,  the  road  thou'rt  treading 
Our  Captain  himself  hath  trod; 
Shrink  not,  if  His  order  comes  ringing, 
'Forward!  the  City  for  God!' 

"Pledged  to  follow  thy  Captain, 
Through  good  report  or  ill; 
With  a  cheer,  take  the  post  set  thee, 
Rejoice  to  do  His  will. 

"Rejoice,  if  He  think  thee  worthy 
To  front  the  fiercest  woe; 
Wrap  His  peace  around  thee, 
Thy  patience  God  doth  know." 

Christianity  conferred  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  when  it  gave  to  the  world  a  new  concept 
of  the  source  and  the  use  of  pain  and  evil.  After 
every  catastrophe  there  arises  the  very  natural 
question,  "Why  does  God  permit  it?"  The  query 
always  carries  the  inference  that  if  God  were  a 
good  God,  He  would  not  have  allowed  it  to  hap- 
pen. Whence  cometh  evil?  The  interrogatory 
is  as  old  as  man.    The  Greek  view  was  that  evil 


80  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

has  its  root  in  matter,  but  Christianity  declares 
that  evil  has  its  origin  in  voluntary  guilt.  Greek 
morals  compared  man  with  men,  and  held  that  a 
man  was  ethically  sound  if  he  were  as  good  as  the 
average.  The  Hindu  had  a  deeper  insight,  for 
one  of  their  sagas  tells  us:  *'True  superiority 
consists  not  in  being  superior  to  some  other  man, 
but  in  being  superior  to  one's  previous  self." 
Christian  ethics  advanced  beyond  all  other  con- 
cepts, ideas  and  ideals  by  comparing  man  with  one 
ideal,  divine  perfection,  positing  thus  not  a  rela- 
tive but  an  absolute  standard.  It  took  for  its 
symbol  the  cross,  from  which  divine  love  did  not 
shrink.  Christ  was  thus  the  prototype  of  all 
human  suffering,  embodied  in  an  incomparable 
spiritual  individuality  which  did  not  admit  of 
being  invented  nor  factitiously  "written  up"  and 
perfected. 

It  will  be  granted  as  a  general  proposition  that 
man  transcends  nature;  further  it  will  be  granted 
that  if  man  is  to  govern  matter,  there  must  be 
forethought  on  man's  part  and  regularity  on 
nature's  part.  To  be  beneficent  nature  must  be 
inexorable.  Only  in  that  way  can  man  be  taught 
not  to  depend  upon  external  helps,  but  to  rely  on 
self.  For  example,  famine  teaches  him  to  study 
agricultural  science;  shipwrecks  force  him  to  study 


"GOOD  OLD  TIMES"  81 

navigation;  sicknesses  compel  him  to  know  about 
the  laws  of  sanitation.  A  world  without  pain 
would  be  a  world  unguarded  against  poisons, 
epidemics  or  a  general  conflagration.  A  physi- 
cian could  not  diagnose  a  case;  a  patient  would 
not  be  obliged  by  pain  to  stop  and  rest  and  recover 
his  strength,  were  it  not  for  the  kindly  monition 
of  pain.  The  fact  that  we  have  improved  on 
"the  good  old  times,"  when  famine,  shipwreck 
and  pestilence  were  more  common  than  to-day, 
shows  that  pain  has  been  instrumental  in  making 
the  world  better.  It  was  a  shrewd  reply  that  was 
given  by  a  Floridian,  after  one  of  the  hard  freezes 
that  recently  have  come  to  that  state,  when  he 
said,  "No  one  could  make  money  in  oranges  un- 
less there  were  freezes  now  and  then,  for,  without 
the  freezes,  so  many  oranges  would  be  raised  that 
there  would  be  no  profit  in  the  fruit  that  was 
grown. " 

Things  easily  made  have  not  the  value  of 
things  that  are  hard  to  produce.  While  men 
may  make  money,  God  is  making  character. 
Money  would  have  no  value  unless  hard  to  make; 
the  strong  characters  of  the  world  are  made  by  the 
hard  conditions. 

**How  poor  were  earth  ...  if  all  were  satiate 
smooth." 


82  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

There  are  those  who  would  have  us  believe  that 
they  could  have  made  a  better  world  if  their  coun- 
sel had  been  asked.  John  Stuart  Mill  viewed 
the  world  as  a  colossal  blunder.  Again,  there  are 
those  who  explain  the  origin  of  evil  by  affecting 
the  Zoroastrian  doctrine  of  the  eternal  evil  prin- 
ciple; the  dualism  of  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman;  light 
versus  darkness,  spirit  versus  matter,  dove  versus 
devil.  Isaiah  had  a  different  idea,  "  I  make  peace 
and  create  evil :  I,  the  Lord,  do  all  these  things. " 
When  God  placed  a  curse  upon  the  ground,  and 
said  that  it  should  bring  forth  thorns  and  thistles, 
he  said,  "Cursed  be  the  ground  for  thy  sake." 
It  was  designed  to  be  a  struggle  in  order  to  de- 
velop the  character.  That  the  temptation  came 
through  the  snake  is  the  legend  of  several  nations. 
The  Metropolitan  Museum  has  a  large  relief  in 
stone,  taken  from  the  temple  of  Hibis,  showing 
Sutekh,  the  popular  deity  of  the  oasis,  slaying  the 
serpent  of  Evil.  Oriental  rehgions  convey  the 
idea  that  the  whole  struggle  of  Hfe  has  no  definite 
aim  and  object;  we  Occidentals  refuse  to  accept 
this  doctrine  that  life  has  no  goal,  because  it  is 
unreasonable,  for,  the  purpose  of  life  to  us  seems 
to  be,  not  the  creation  of  jelly-like  invertebrates, 
but  forceful  and  strong  characters.  Without 
danger,  temptation,  pain  and  loss,  no  character 


WHENCE  COMETH  EVIL?  83 

ever  could  be  made  that  was  brave,  pure,  patient 
and  sweet.  Canon  Westcott  wrote  that  there  was 
"not  one  of  us  who  has  not  found  a  great  sorrow, 
a  great  disappointment,  or  a  great  trial,  a  verit- 
able avenue  to  imexpected  joy.  ^*  We  begin  grad- 
ually to  assume  the  mental  habit  that  can  look 
upon  evil  as  a  good  in  disguise,  sometimes  too 
thoroughly  disguised  perhaps,  but  not  an  un- 
mixed evil;  we  commence  to  regard  evil  as  a  sort 
of  schoolmaster,  and  realize  that  so  soon  as  we 
forget  that  the  world  is  a  schoolroom,  the  puzzle 
of  life  comes  back  upon  our  hearts.  Browning 
knew  it  well,  and  his  dictum  was,  "When  pain  ends, 
gain  ends  too. "  We  sometimes  complain  of  rain 
and  clouds,  forgetting  the  Arab  proverb  that  "All 
sunshine  makes  a  Sahara."  Were  there  no  Sa- 
hara, no  Arctic  and  Antarctic  zones,  there  could  be 
no  trade-winds  carrying  their  blessings.  If  flow- 
ers are  withheld  from  the  rain,  they  have  no  frag- 
rance; they  have  no  choice  in  the  matter,  yet  some 
people  do  have  the  choice,  and,  sadly  enough  for 
themselves,  they  elect  a  hot-house  life,  and  its 
product  is  weak  faces  and  unformed  characters. 
Tacking  against  a  head  wind  makes  character. 
Steam  burns  the  hand,  but  the  pain  set  James 
Watt's  mind  at  work,  and  we  now  have  engines. 
Prosperity,   said   Bacon,    "best   discovers   vice, 


84  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

while  adversity  doth  best  discover  virtue." 
Stevenson  knew  the  awakening  power  of  pain, 
and  he  shows  it  in  the  lines: 

"If  I  have  faltered  more  or  less, 
In  my  great  task  of  happiness: 
If  I  have  moved  among  my  race, 
And  shown  no  cheery  morning  face: 
If  beams  from  happy  human  eyes 
Have  moved  me  not :  if  morning  skies. 
Nature,  book,  food  and  summer  rain. 
Knocked  at  my  sullen  heart  in  vain: — 
God!    Thy  most  piercing  pain  do  take. 
And  stab  my  spirit  broad  awake!" 

We  grow  most  when  we  bear  most;  and  this  is 
not  only  true  psychically,  but  physically  and  men- 
tally. In  our  physical  life  we  grew  most  rapidly 
when  we  worked  the  hardest;  in  our  mental  de- 
velopment our  advances  were  most  rapid  when 
our  lessons  were  the  most  difficult;  and  we  know 
from  our  experience,  that  in  our  soul  growth  we 
really  gained  only  when  trouble  came.  David 
knew  this,  saying,  "It  is  good  for  me  that  I  have 
been  in  trouble."  Dr.  Johnson  wrote,  "Of  all 
the  virtue  in  the  world,  trouble  has  produced 
the  greatest  part."  Archbishop  Benson  says, 
"I  have  learned  that  mistakes  can  often  be  set 
right,  that  anxieties  fade,  that  calamities  have 
sometimes  a  compensating  element."  And  so 
we  learn  to  use  pain,  loss  and  sorrow  as  a  means 


PAIN'S  BLESSING  85 

for  acquiring  new  power;  and  like  Jacob  of  old, 
wrestling  with  the  angel,  to  say,  *'Iwill  not  let  thee 
go  except  thou  bless  me. "  We  learn  to  look  over 
troubles  and  not  into  them;  to  combat  not  details 
but  essentials;  to  cultivate  a  wise  indifference  to 
the  transient;  confident  of  the  eternal;  to  use 
trouble  as  a  ship  uses  the  head  winds,  sailing  to 
windward  by  means  of  the  very  opposition  en- 
countered. Browning  knew  the  good  of  it  and 
expressed  his  mind,  in  the  lines — 

"Then  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  life's  smoothness  rough, 
That  bids  not  stand,  nor  sit,  but  go. " 

We  are  furthermore  in  our  greatest  dangers 
when  we  have  our  greatest  joys.  The  new  psy- 
chology teaches  that  at  a  time  of  the  greatest 
psychical  elevation,  the  soul  is  in  its  greatest  jeop- 
ardy. Witnesses  to  this  are  the  sad  lapses  which 
sometimes  are  seen  immediately  after  a  revival. 
Temporal  success  is  not  therefore  a  time  for  soul- 
growth.  Our  Litany  recognizes  this  in  its  prayer 
for  deHverance  in  "all  times  of  our  tribulation", 
and  then  adding  immediately  the  more  important 
prayer,  "in  all  times  of  our  prosperity."  Plato 
thought  of  the  matter  and  said  that  "Poverty  or 
sickness,  or  any  seeming  misfortune — all  will  in 
the  end  work  together  for  good  to  him  who  de- 


86  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

sires  to  become  just  and  to  be  like  the  gods." 
Romans,  8:  28  reads,  ''We  know  that  all  things 
work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God.'' 
The  Epicurean  counts  pain  as  an  evil,  and  flees 
before  it;  the  Stoic  bears  it  as  best  he  may;  but 
the  Christian  counts  pain  as  God's  angel,  and 
wrestles  with  it,  demanding  a  blessing.  A  Christ- 
ian, and  a  Christian  only,  can  imderstand  pain, 
or  has  any  rational  explanation  for  it,  and  the 
words,  ''Blessed  are  they  that  mourn,"  can  be 
interpreted  as  meaning  that  the  mourners  were 
blessed  because  through  their  sorrow  they  might 
come  to  strength.  Pain,  sorrow,  loss,  and  the 
greater  and  lesser  ills  of  life  are  not  punitive  so 
much  as  redemptive. 

Much,  if  not  most  of  the  pain  and  evil  in  the 
world  come  from  our  lower  and  animal  natures; 
the  traces  of  the  ape  and  tiger  within  us,  such  as 
greed,  selfishness,  cruelty;  this  St.  Paul  recognized 
in  the  words,  "members  warring  against  one  an- 
other:" and  finally  he  cries,  "Who  shall  de- 
liver me  from  the  body  of  this  death?  "  Who  but 
Christ  indeed!  Fire,  shipwreck,  tornado — all  are 
under  their  own  law,  and  that  law  must  be  inex- 
orable. We  have  no  right  to  ask  that  fire  shall 
warm  us  when  we  are  cold,  and  at  the  same  time 
shall  not  burn  us  if  we  fall  into  it;  we  have  no 


GLORY  IN  TRIBULATION  87 

right  to  ask  that  the  winds  of  the  sea  shall  blow 
the  atmosphere  clear  and  cool,  and  at  the  same 
time  shall  not  blow  us  from  our  course;  nor  have 
we  a  right  to  ask  that  water  shall  do  all  that  water 
can  do,  and  at  the  same  time  shall  not  drown. 
Cold  and  suffering  have  made  the  home  by  driv- 
ing men  indoors;  soul-sickness  and  heart-weari- 
ness are  driving  men  towards  heaven.  Thus,  by 
its  new  concept  of  evil,  pain  and  sorrow,  Christ- 
ianity has  an  uplifting  and  carrying  power  to  aid 
suffering  humanity;  and  because  of  this  new  con- 
cept, you  and  I  can  take  up  a  stronger,  more 
reasonable  attitude  towards  all  the  ills  of  Hfe 
than  ever  before  possible.  We  can  say  with 
Browning,  ''This  world's  no  blot  for  us,  no  blank; 
it  means  intensely,  and  it  means  good.  '^  Christ- 
ianity's idea  of  pain,  sorrow  and  loss,  raises  man 
from  the  rank  pessimism  previously  offered. 
Compare,  for  instance,  the  wailing  words  of  Ovid 
in  his  Tristia;  or  Cicero's  lamentations  during  his 
exile,  with  the  heroic  tones  of  a  worn,  weary  and 
jailed  Jew,  feeble  in  frame,  fame  and  friends,  and 
a  victim  of  perjury,  who  made  no  wail  nor  lamen- 
tation, but  sings,  "Rejoice,  and  again  I  say, 
rejoice!"  "We  glory  in  tribulations."  What 
other  religion  but  Christianity  did  so  bring  hope 
into  the  world?    It  gave  to  the  world  a  new  and 


88  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

workable  theory  as  to  why  pain,  evil  and  sorrow 
are  in  the  world,  together  with  a  power  to  bear 
them  all.  That  there  was  a  wondrous  dynamic 
in  Christianity,  far  above  any  power  in  the  phil- 
osophies, is  shown  by  recalling  the  fact  that  the 
work  done  by  the  philosophers  was  all  done  with 
a  pervading  consciousness  of  the  emptiness  and 
the  worthlessness  of  all  human  endeavor  and  ex- 
istence; whereas,  the  work  done  by  the  Fathers, 
although  far  surpassed  in  matter  and  manner  by 
the  philosophers,  had  a  future  to  offer,  a  new  life, 
a  sure  peace.  It  was  resignation  as  contrasted 
with  hope,  a  languid  pessimism  versus  a  virile 
optimism.  Christianity,  in  its  simplest  terms, 
gave  the  first  correct  answer  to  the  question, 
"  What  is  the  World  for?"  It  said  that  the  world 
was  for  the  growing  of  souls;  souls,  delivered  from 
bondage  into  the  glorious  Uberty  of  the  children 
of  God.  Browning's  workable  and  working  theory 
of  life  was  Christian,  and  he  wrote,  "Life  is  pro- 
bation, and  this  earth  no  goal,  but  starting-point 
to  try  man's  foot,  if  he  will  creep  or  climb,  and 
make  the  stumbHng-block  the  stepping-stone." 
And  again  Browning,  **  We  are  here  to  fit  ourselves 
for  something  better:  now  is  for  dogs  and  apes, 
man  has  forever."  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  wrote  in 
his  ''Reason  and  Belief,"  page  27,  "We  are  here 


BIOLOGY  OF  SOUL  89 

to  become  worthy  of  our  origin;  to  develop  char- 
acter and  a  will,  and  to  become  ripe  for  freedom.'* 
We  know  by  our  own  observation  and  experience 
that  Christianity's  answer  to  the  World's  Riddle, 
Cut  Bono  J  is  right,  because  it  gives  soul-peace  and 
rest, — God's  rest. 

If  the  world  is  a  place  for  growing  souls,  then 
the  question,  "What  is  a  soul?"  is  pertinent. 
The  practical  man  says  at  once  that  he  never  saw 
a  soul,  and  there  is  no  skiagraph  of  one.  Yet  the 
soul  exists  and  it  has  a  biology.  A  soul  is  the  dif- 
ference between  anthropoid  ape  and  man.  This 
soul  speaks  to  us  in  the  voice  of  conscience.  Emer- 
son said  that  conscience  was  as  a  voice  just  be- 
hind us  which  was  gone  the  moment  we  turned 
around;  but  this  was  much  better  said  by  Isaiah, 
''And  thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee, 
sa^dng  'This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it  when  ye 
turn  to  the  right  hand  and  when  ye  turn  to  the 
left.' "  Now  the  biology  of  the  soul  can  be  stud- 
ied, and  we  can  ask  at  once  as  to  whence  cometh 
this  soul? 

In  the  last  century  a  "scientific"  experiment 
was  loudly  advertised  announcing  that  one  Dr. 
Bastian  had  found  the  origin  of  Hfe.  We  hear  in 
our  own  times,  every  now  and  then,  of  some  chem- 
ists or  physicists  who  hkewise  claim  to  have  grown 


90  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

life  from  nothing,  and  the  papers  tell  us  that  the 
origin  of  life  has  been  revealed.  It  seems  that  Dr. 
Bastian  obtained  some  lower  form  of  hfe  from  an 
infusion  which  he  had  made;  Prof.  Tyndall  tried 
to  repeat  the  experiment  using  the  proper  pre- 
cautions to  avoid  the  chance  of  any  extraneous 
germs,  and  the  "experiment"  failed.  Huxley- 
then  emitted  the  dogma — for  science  has  dogmas, 
except  that  when  made  they  are  named  theories, 
and  only  advance  to  dogmas  when  they  have  been 
reasonably  proved — and  Huxley's  dogma  was 
there  was  not  and  never  could  be  abiogenesis. 
"No  life  without  antecedent  life.'^  No  spon- 
taneous generation.  "Not  a  shred  of  testimony 
has  ever  been  offered  to  prove  that  life  ever  ap- 
peared independently  of  antecedent  life."  That 
is  to  say,  it  is  impossible  to  pass  from  the  mineral 
kingdom  to  the  vegetable  kingdom,  or  from  the 
vegetable  to  the  animal,  or  from  the  animal  to 
homo  sapiens  or  man  en-souled.  To  use  Prof. 
Drummond's  simile,  one  can  say  that  the  door  is 
locked  on  the  upper  side;  the  mineral  of  itself  can 
not  raise  itself  up  into  the  vegetable,  nor  can  the 
vegetable  of  itself  raise  itself  up  into  animal. 
But  the  converse  is  true,  namely,  that  the  vege- 
table can  reach  down  into  the  mineral  and  raise 
up  the  mineral  into  the  higher  kingdom;  and  again 


SOUL  91 

the  animal  can  go  down  into  the  lower  vegetable 
and  raise  it  up  into  its  own  higher  kingdom;  as 
Prof.  Drummond  says,  "The  door  is  locked  and 
the  key  is  on  the  upper  side."  Analogy  carries 
us  further,  for  when  we  see  that  the  door  can  be  un- 
locked between  the  kingdoms,  but  unlocked  only 
on  the  upper  side;  and  that  vegetable  can  reach 
down  into  mineral  and  transmute  it  into  vege- 
table; when  we  see  that  animal  can  lift  up  vege- 
table; and  that  thinking,  speaking  man  can  assim- 
ilate and  vitalize  vegetable  and  mineral,  then, 
by  analogy,  there  is  one  more  step  which  can  be 
taken,  namely  that  soul-stuff  can  come  from  its 
higher  kingdom,  and  reach  down  into  man  by  un- 
locking the  door  on  the  upper  side,  and  man  then 
becomes  endowed  with  a  soul.  There  is  no  better 
description  of  all  this  than  is  given  in  the  biblical 
phraseology,  "And  God  breathed  into  man's  nos- 
trils the  breath  of  life  and  man  became  a  living 
soul. "     Man  became  ensouled. 

The  physical  world's  dominant  reality  is  motion, 
while  the  psychical  world's  cardinal  reality  is 
thought.  Our  physical  bodies  grow,  and  it  is 
perhaps  years  before  we  come  to  active  self-con- 
sciousness; later  on  comes  the  day  when,  for  the 
first  time,  we  realize  that  we  have  souls;  they  are 
awakened,  or  born,  and  this  awakening  or  birth 


92  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

is  no  less  a  marvel,  than  the  marvel  of  our  first 
or  physical  birth.  This  awakening  of  a  soul  is 
in  no  place  better  described  than  by  Stanley  when 
he  tells  of  the  awakening  of  his  soul.  When 
Stanley  found  Livingstone  in  central  Africa,  and 
heard  the  wonders  of  the  Dark  Continent,  he 
tried  to  influence  that  great  missionary  to  return 
to  America,  and  make  a  fortune  in  lecturing; 
Livingstone  replied  that  he  had  no  time  left  to 
make  money;  that  he  had  heard  the  voice  of  the 
black  man  crying,  "Come  over  and  help  us," 
and  that  he  would  not  rest  day  nor  night  until 
he  had  carried  the  Bible  and  the  cross  into  the 
heart  of  Africa.  Stanley  says  that  he  left  Living- 
stone's tent,  and  went  out  into  the  dark  night,  and 
looked  up  at  the  stars,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  prayed.  "I  entered  Livingstone's  tent  an 
avowed  atheist,  I  left  that  tent  a  Christian." 
His  soul  was  awakened.  It  had  not  come  from 
a  lower  sphere;  it  was  not  of  the  mineral  kingdom, 
nor  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  nor  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  but  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

We  have  souls,  and  the  world  is  made  for 
growing  and  developing  them.  We  can  either 
strengthen  them  or  deny  them  development.  As 
free  agents,  we  can  murder  the  soul.  The  death  of 
a  soul  is  spoken  of  early  in  the  book  of  Genesis, 


SOUL  SUICIDE  93 

where  God  told  our  first  parents  that  if  they  should 
eat  of  the  fruit  of  a  certain  tree,  they  would  surely 
die;  they  did  eat  of  that  tree,  and  although  they 
did  not  die  physically  then  and  there,  neverthe- 
less, soul-death  began  for  them  at  that  time. 
Living  without  God  in  the  world,  or  living  in 
open  rebellion  against  God,  murders  the  soul,  for 
the  soul  of  man  cannot  live  its  life  in  separation 
from  the  all-penetrating  unity  which  alone  con- 
ditions soul-life.  "Dust  thou  art  and  to  dust 
shalt  thou  return,"  refers  to  the  physical  frame 
of  man.  Men  are  princes  potentially,  but  if  they 
wilfully  refuse  to  let  their  souls  live,  although  they 
may  live  physically,  yet  they  are  in  exile  from 
their  proper  country. 

What  spiritualia  exergfita  shall  we  employ  in 
order  to  best  cultivate,  develop  and  grow  our 
souls?  We  know  that  unused  members  of  the 
body  become  atrophied  by  disuse;  the  fish  of 
Mammoth  Cave  are  blind  because  they  have  never 
used  the  optic  nerve.  What  moral  gymnasium 
could  be  better  as  a  place  to  grow  souls  than  this 
world  in  which  we  now  live?  If  you  had  the  con- 
struction of  a  cosmos,  and  wished  to  grow  souls 
fit  for  some  higher  life,  could  you  have  made  a 
better  place  for  the  purpose?  It  is  here  that  our 
souls  best  grow  in  such  virtues  as  patience,  like 


^/ 


94  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

a  garden  bringing  forth  flowers.  The  story  of 
Gwen  in  the  ''Sky  Pilot"  tells  us,  in  an  exquisitely 
beautiful  way,  how  the  patience  flower  is  grown. 
It  tells  of  a  little  girl,  living  as  free  as  the  wind  on 
a  Western  ranch;  how  her  horse  fell  on  her  so  that 
she  never  again  could  walk;  how  the  Httle  minister, 
the  sky-pilot,  showed  her  what  it  all  meant;  he 
told  her  in  a  parable,  which  described  how  God 
made  the  little  patience  flower  she  knew  so  well, 
growing  in  the  deep  canon  she  used  to  visit  with 
her  pony;  how  God  made  the  earth  bring  forth 
the  flower,  but  how  He  was  obliged  to  use  earth- 
quakes, grinding  glacial  action,  cold,  heat  and 
rain — all  to  make  a  soil  in  which  the  little  patience 
flower  would  grow.  Gwen  understood  the  par- 
able, and  accepted  it,  and  grew  her  own  patience 
flower;  and  not  Gwen  alone  but  the  rough  men 
of  the  ranch  too,  because  they  saw  the  beauty  of 
the  patience  flower  which  she  had  in  her  soul.  In 
the  same  way,  when  the  earthquake,  or  the  sor- 
rows of  life  come  upon  us,  it  means  only  a  better 
preparation  for  the  growth  of  our  patience  flower. 
One  of  our  poets  saw  the  good  of  it  all  when  he 
wrote,  "Mid  all  my  store  of  blessings  manifold, 
I  count  this  chief  est — that  my  heart  has  bled." 
How  can  souls  be  strengthened?  Every  pur- 
poseful man  wants  strength,  and  when  any  method 


SOUL  STRENGTH  95 

is  proposed  by  which  strength  can  be  acquired  or 
increased,  it  always  receives  more  or  less  of  an 
hearing.  Now  physical  strength  is  not  the  most 
important  kind  of  strength,  for  it  is  at  most  a 
short-lived  affair.  One  of  the  saddest  sights  is 
that  of  the  quondam  athlete,  whose  health  has 
failed,  and  who  recounts  his  story  of  what  he  used 
to  do.  There  is  an  higher  type  of  strength,  and 
one  that  ever  gains  in  power  when  physical  force 
decays.  Mere  mental  strength  is  not  meant,  for 
mentality  reaches  its  climax,  and  then  seems  to 
lose  edge  and  acumen.  The  highest  type  of 
strength,  and  one  that  all  can  have,  whether  we 
be  physically  or  mentally  robust,  is  soul  or  spirit 
strength.  We  can  see  for  ourselves  that  it  is  not 
height  nor  head  that  gave  to  the  leaders  of  the 
world  their  commanding  force.  Paul  was  short 
of  stature,  and  he  had  a  grievous  unknown  illness 
or  'Hhorn  in  the  flesh, "  yet  no  name  among  men's 
leaders  of  men  is  greater.  The  traveller,  seeing 
the  colossal  statues  of  the  early  Egyptian  kings 
on  the  Nile,  is  not  for  one  moment  so  impressed 
as  he  is  when  he  stands  before  the  smaller  statu- 
ary of  Michael  Angelo  or  Thorwaldsen.  It  is  not 
size  nor  height  that  influences  us.  Nor  is  it 
brain-power  that  always  commands  in  the  world, 
for  the  Apostles  themselves,  according  to  the  con- 


96  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

fession  of  one  of  their  own  number,  were  ^'un- 
learned and  ignorant  men. "  Again,  what  trans- 
formed Handel  from  a  poor,  unknown  composer 
before  he  wrote  his  oratories  on  sacred  themes, 
to  a  name  that  will  be  forever  known  and  revered 
wherever  music  is  music?  What  is  the  secret  of 
the  undying  power  of  those  Wagner  operas  which 
deal  with  sacred  motives,  as  Tannhauser  showing 
divine  forgiveness?  It  is  spirit  power  and  spirit 
strength.  Sometimes  we  see  a  poor  artisan  strug- 
gling against  adverse  circumstances,  and  working 
as  with  the  strength  of  ten;  then  we  are  convinced 
that  men  of  force,  strength  and  power  are  not 
necessarily  robust,  nor  intellectual,  but  we  perceive 
that  the  men  of  the  sublime  business  in  the  world 
were  always  and  everywhere  those  who  reached 
down  into  and  drew  from  spiritual  forces  which 
gave  them  dynamic.  Moreover,  this  is  the  new 
psychology's  teaching,  and  the  glory  of  it  is  that 
we  can  all  achieve  this  kind  of  strength.  How? 
By  the  discipline  of  obedience,  prayer,  and  con- 
secration. 

The  essence  and  spirit  of  obedience  is  the  merit 
or  the  demerit  of  a  man's  education.  The  child 
who  has  been  brought  up  in  a  family  where  obe- 
dience is  instilled,  becomes  the  useful  citizen;  the 
youth  who  has  been  obediently  subject  to  his 


BY  OBEDIENCE  97 

teachers,  is  sure  to  have  influence  for  good  on  at- 
taining majority;  an  army  maxim  is,  that  no  man 
is  able  to  command  until  he  has  learned  to  obey. 
Abram  was  obedient  and  ''went  out  into  a  coun- 
try he  knew  not  of,"  and  inherited  it.  Samuel 
exemplified  the  spirit  of  obedience  in  the  words, 
"Speak,  for  thy  servant  heareth."  And  Paul 
wrote  himself  as  not  being  ''disobedient  to  the 
voice  of  the  heavenly  vision. "  Obedience  is  the 
first  step  towards  acquiring  the  greatest  of  world 
forces,  spiritual  strength. 

A  second  step  in  the  same  direction  is  that 
which  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  calls  the  "forgotten  secret 
of  the  Christian  life, "  namely,  prayer.  The  effi- 
cacy of  prayer  is  too  often  mistrusted  or  forgotten. 
Prayer  is  universal  and  elemental  in  human 
nature.  One  can  see  it  in  going  around  the  world, 
starting  with  the  cathedral  towers  and  spires  of 
England  and  Europe,  passing  the  muezzins  pro- 
claiming the  hour  of  prayer  from  their  minarets, 
the  Mohammedans  on  their  prayer  rugs,  and  the 
multitude  of  temples  in  the  far  East.  Even  the 
hardiest  atheists  believe  in  prayer,  for  their  first 
words  in  time  of  disaster  are  substantially,  "God 
help  us!"  Tennyson  witnessed  the  power  of 
prayer  in  Morte  d'Arthur,  by  the  line  "More 
things  are  wrought  by  prayer  than  this  world 


98  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

dreams  of."  And  again  Tennyson,  "Speak  to 
Him,  thou, — for  He  hears;  and  Spirit  with  spirit 
may  meet,  closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer 
than  hands  and  feet. "  And  again,  "  For  what  are 
men  better  than  sheep  or  goats,  if,  knowing  God, 
they  lift  not  hands  in  prayer?"  Shakespeare 
makes  a  king  say : 

"And  what's  in  prayer  but  this  two-fold  force. 
To  be  fore-stalled  ere  we  come  to  fall, 
Or  pardoned,  being  down. " 

A  logician  tersely  argued,  that  a  God  who 
couldn't  hear  would  be  no  God,  and  a  God  who 
wouldn't  hear  would  be  immoral.  Cyprian  gently 
inquired,  "If  He,  the  Sinless,  prayed,  how  much 
more  should  we,  the  sinful,  pray?"  Yet  not  to 
deflect  God's  will  to  ours,  but  rather  to  adjust 
our  will  to  His.  Not  a  conquering  of  God's  re- 
luctance, not  mere  mendicacy,  but  a  taking  hold 
of  God's  willingness.  A  two-fold  world  makes 
the  cosmos  perfect — natural,  and  spiritual,  and  he 
who  separates  these  two,  "tears  up  the  bond  of 
nature."  Prayer  preserves  this  bond  of  nature. 
It  is  conversing  with  God.  The  root  or  basic 
idea  is  man's  instinctive  longing  for  companion- 
ship; not  so  much  an  asking  as  a  seeking. 
"Walked  with  God,"  means  that  Enoch  could 
not  bear  isolation.     Prayer  is  the  "sigh  of  the 


BY  PRAYER  99 

heart."  It  places  things  in  proper  perspective 
and  focus,  and  restores  to  men  balance  and  poise. 
Walter  Scott  gave  his  tribute  to  the  help  of  prayer 
thus: 

"I  strive  like  to  a  vessel  in  the  tide-way, 
Which  lacking  favoring  breeze  hath  not  the  power 
To  stem  the  powerful  current.     Even  so, 
Resolving  daily  to  forsake  my  vices, — 
Habits,   strong  circumstance,  renewea  tempta- 
tion 
Sweep  me  to  sea  again.     O  Heavenly  Breath ! 
Fill  thou  my  sails  and  aid  my  feeble  vessel 
Which  ne'er  can  reach  the  blessed  port  without 
Thee." 

That  wise  writer,  Torrey,  said  that  the  reason 
so  many  fail,  is  because  they  wait  until  the  hour 
of  battle,  and  the  reason  why  others  succeed  is 
because  they  have  gamed  their  victory  on  their 
knees  long  before  the  battle  came.  Christ  con- 
quered in  the  awful  battle  in  Pilate's  judgment 
hall,  and  on  the  very  cross,  because  He  had,  the 
night  before,  in  prayer  anticipated  the  battle  and 
gained  the  victory,  long  before  the  real  struggle 
came.  He  told  His  disciples  to  do  the  same.  He 
had  bidden  them,  ''Pray,  that  ye  enter  not  into 
temptation";  but  they  slept  when  they  ought  to 
have  prayed,  and  so,  when  the  hour  of  tempta- 
tion came,  they  fell. 

How  to  pray  is  well  told  by  that  most  devotional 


100  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

of  souls,  Bishop  Andrewes.  "If  thou  prayest  for 
thyself  alone,  thou  alone  will  pray  for  thyself; 
but  if  thou  prayest  for  others,  others  will  pray 
for  thee."  A  prayer  worthy  of  many  repetitions 
was  given  by  a  poet  who  had  great  spirit  strength 
and  spiritual  vision: — 

"May  God  preserve  thy  going  out, 
May  God  preserve  thy  coming  in: 
God  send  His  angels  round  about 
To  keep  thee  from  all  taint  of  sin. 

"And  when  thy  going  out  is  done, 
And  when  thy  coming  in  is  o'er. 
When  in  death's  darkness,  all  alone, 
Thy  feet  can  come  nor  go  no  more; 

"May  God  preserve  thy  going  out 

From  this  dark  world  of  pain  and  sin. 
While  angels  standing  round  about 
Cry,  'God  preserve  thy  coming  in!'  " 

But  the  supremest  degree  of  psychical  strength 
comes  from  consecration.  We  pray  in  our  office 
of  Morning  Prayer,  that  we  may  show  forth  thy 
praise,  not  only  with  our  lips,  but  in  our  lives, 
by  "giving  up  ourselves  to  thy  service."  This 
means  a  devotion  and  a  whole-souled  consecra- 
tion. The  highest  spiritual  power  can  come  from 
it.  The  story  of  Chiara  holds  this  idea  clearly 
before  our  minds.  Chiara  had  been  obedient  in 
learning  the  laws  of  his  art  in  the  school  for  paint- 


BY  CONSECRATION  101 

ing  in  Florence  whither  he  had  walked  barefoot 
in  order  to  study;  he  had  prayed  indeed  for  skill 
in  his  loved  art,  but  he  had  not  taken  that  last 
essential  step  in  giving  himself  to  his  work,  namely 
the  giving  of  himself  in  utter  consecration  which 
alone  could  give  him  the  success  at  which  he 
aimed.  His  soul's  wish  was  to  have  one  of  his 
paintings  in  the  Florence  Art  Gallery.  One  night 
a  vision  spoke  to  him  and  said,  "Chiara,  Chiara, 
I  am  thy  soul's  wife — thine  Art,  but  thou  dost 
not  serve  me  as  one  who  would  win  me;  and  though 
I  love  thee,  yet  I  cannot  be  thine  except  thou 
givest  me  all  in  total  consecration;  thou  cans't 
not  serve  me  at  times  of  inspiration,  and  then 
revert  at  other  times  to  thyself,  thy  selfish  self. 
Chiara,  dost  thou  not  know  that  if  thou  comest 
to  a  quiet  lake,  thou  cans't  not  see  thyself  except 
thou  leanest  far  over  the  edge  of  the  water,  and 
givest  thyself  to  seeing?  Consecrate  thyself  to 
me,  and  thy  soul's  wish  shall  be  granted. ' '  Chiara 
did,  and  then  made  his  last  picture  which  now  is 
in  the  Florence  Gallery. 

A  legend  of  ancient  China  tells  the  same  moral. 
At  the  Court  of  Pekin  there  was  an  harp  named 
the  Harp  of  Lungmen,  and  none  of  the  harpists 
could  play  on  it  successfully;  Pei  Woh  came  one 
day  and  asked  that  he  might  try.     He  played  so 


102  EVOLUTION  OF  SOUL 

wondrously  that  the  whole  court  was  charmed, 
and  the  Emperor  asked  him  how  it  was  that  he 
could  play  the  harp  of  Lungmen,  although  all  the 
court  harpists  had  failed.  Pei  Woh  answered, 
"I  simply  let  the  old  harp  sing  its  own  song,  and 
did  not  try  to  make  it  give  mine  own;  I  forgot 
myself,  and  consecrated  my  hands  to  the  soul  of 
the  harp,  and  it  was  not  Pei  Woh  who  made  the 
music,  but  the  harp.  It  told  its  own  story  of  the 
wood  from  which  the  sounding-board  was  made; 
how  it  grew  year  by  year  in  the  deep  forest,  hear- 
ing the  birds  of  the  summer,  and  the  cold  winds 
and  snows  of  the  winter;  I  let  the  old  harp  sing 
of  the  cruel  axe  which  cut  the  tree,  and  of  all  the 
pain  which  the  fiber  suffered  when  it  was  worked 
over  into  the  sounding-board;  again,  I  let  the  harp 
tell  the  song  of  the  wires,  and  of  how  the  ore  was 
mined  from  the  deep  earth,  and  then  smelted 
and  refined  in  the  hot  fiery  furnace;  Lungmen  told 
of  birth,  growth,  pain,  and  finally  of  the  great  joy 
because  the  harp  had  become  itself.  The  harp 
told  the  story  and  gave  the  music — not  poor  Pei 
Woh.'*  It  was  the  spirit  of  consecration  which 
gave  Pei  Woh  the  power  to  play  the  old  Harp  of 
Lungmen. 

It  was  Watts  who  spoke  of  our  bodies  as  "  harps 
of  a  thousand  strings."     By  a  spirit  of  entire 


PERFECTED  IN  PATIENCE  103 

self-forgetfulness  and  consecration  we  can  give 
that  song  which  God  gives  each  of  us  to  sing. 
Every  one  of  us  has  a  part  to  play  in  the  world's 
work,  and  we  need  strength,  and  the  psychical 
strength  which  we  must  needs  have,  we  can  get 
by  the  obedience  of  Paul,  the  prayerful  spirit  of 
Daniel,  and  the  consecration  of  Pei  Woh;  then, 
and  then  only,  can  we  play  our  rightful  part  prop- 
erly, and  long  afterwards  we  shall  play  it  not  as 
our  own  song,  but  as  one  of  God's  harmonies. 

"Father,  we  lift  our  hands  to  Thee, 
With  deep  desire  one  boon  we  ask: 
Grant  this — that  we  may  patient  be, 
Whate'er  our  burden  or  our  task." 

"Give  us  a  temper  meek  and  strong 
For  all  that  we  must  do  or  bear. 
Undaunted  by  outrageous  wrong, 
Unf retted  by  insistent  care." 

"  Like  Him,  we  would  the  triumph  know 
Of  overcoming  ill  with  good; 
And  drinking  deep  while  here  below, 
The  joy  of  His  beatitude. " 

— The  Rev,  Dr.  Moxom. 


CHAPTER  V 

MAN  ENSOULED 

"  Build  a  little  fence  of  trust 

Around  to-day. 
Fill  the  space  with  loving  deeds, 

And  therein  stay; 
Look  not  through  the  sheltering  bars 

Upon  to-morrow, 
God  will  help  thee  bear  what  comes, 

If  joy  or  sorrow." 

There  are  those  who  can  not  yet  see  these 
things  as  we  see  them,  and  who  would  fain  call 
it  all  mysticism.  It  is  the  fable  of  the  little  mole 
over  again,  the  fable  of  a  mole  who  one  day  left 
the  burrow  to  which  he  was  accustomed,  and 
while  in  the  open  daylight,  had  visions  of  men  and 
things,  and  the  great  world  above  him.  On  re- 
turning home  he  told  his  people  that  there  must 
be  something  of  which  the  mole  family  was  ig- 
norant, something  to  see  and  something  with 
which  to  see.  When  he  attempted  to  relate  to 
them  what  he  had  "  seen, "  they  expelled  him  from 
their  colony,  saying  that  they  would  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  transcendentalism.  They 
refused  to  develop  the  seeing  eye.    But  we  have 


CAN  SEE  GOD  105 

eyes  to  see  the  things  of  earth,  the  temporal  things; 
we  also  have  the  power  to  develop  a  spiritual 
eye  which  can  see  the  things  unseen  by  mortal 
eye,  the  things  which  are  eternal. 

With  the  soul's  eye,  the  eye  of  Faith,  we  can 
see  God.  In  the  art  gallery  of  Stockholm  is  the 
statue  of  the  botanist  Linnaeus.  He  holds  a  rose 
in  his  hand,  as  though  studying  and  admiring  it; 
and  we  recall  his  words,  "I  never  could  come  upon 
a  rose  bush  in  full  bloom,  but  I  felt  that  I  was  in 
the  immediate  presence  of  God,  and  was  awed." 
Newton,  in  his  "Principia,"  wrote  that  "this 
beautiful  world  could  have  had  origin  only  in  an 
intelligent  Lord  and  Governor."  Science  has 
been  defined  or  described  as  "thinking  again  the 
thoughts  of  God."  Our  best  scientists  re-dis- 
cover God  in  searching  out  His  thoughts.  Joseph 
Cook's  logic  was,  "All  the  world  shows  thought: 
thought  argues  a  thinker;  a  thinker  must  be  a 
person:  that  Person  we  call  God."  Tolstoy,  in  a 
recent  issue  of  The  Hibbert  Journal,"  wrote  that 
there  was  abroad  a  false  conviction  that  religion 
was  faith  and  nothing  more.  "Religion,"  he 
says,  "is  a  sense  of  acknowledgment  of  soul  and  of 
God.  It  is  not  true  that  religion  is  inexact  and 
inconstant,  for  nothing  is  more  indubitable  than 
God  and  soul."    Though  we  cannot  define  God 


106  MAN  ENSOULED 

and  soul,  yet  we  feel  them  in  a  sense  deeper  than 
knowledge;  they  are  as  axioms,  and  the  basis  of 
everything.  To  continue  from  Tolstoy,  ''The 
philosophic  view  of  life  shuts  its  eyes  to  the  dif- 
ference between  external  knowledge,  and  knowl- 
edge of  God  and  soul;  it  regards  a  chemical  for- 
mula and  man's  consciousness  of  his  own  ego  as 
both  open  to  verbal  definition,  and  thus  confuses 
the  definable  with  the  indefinable,  the  knowable 
with  the  unknowable. "  It  takes  the  eye  of  faith, 
the  spiritual  eye  which  we  all  have,  to  see  God. 
These  are  things  which  can  be  felt,  and  as  Tenny- 
son wrote : 

''If  e'er  when  Faith  had  fallen  asleep, 
I  heard  a  voice  'Believe  no  more!', 
A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part. 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answer'd  'I  have  felt!*  " 

Or,  another  paraphrase,  "The  soul  has  reasons 
that  Reason  knows  not  of."  Bishop  Blougram 
said,  "With  me,  faith  means  perpetual  unbelief, 
kept  quiet  like  the  snake  'neath  Michael's  foot, 
who  stands  firm  just  because  he  feels  it  writhe. " 
Such  things  as  the  walking  by  faith,  and  not  by 
our  present  sense  of  sight,  are  things  which  are 
felt  and  lived,  and  cannot  be  learned;  as  a  German 
spoke  of  them,  they  are  nicht  gelehrnt,   sondern 


CAN  SEE  THE  MASTER  107 

gelebt.  Thus  Liimseus,  Newton,  Cook,  aud  a 
host  of  royal  thinkers  came  to  see  God.  We  are 
to-day  the  sum  of  all  the  experience,  trial  and 
sorrow  through  which  we  have  travelled;  and  we 
can  live  advantageously  only  when  we  have 
profited  by  our  experiences,  trials  and  sorrows, 
so  as  to  be  better  and  stronger  in  a  way  that  is  not 
temporal  and  visible.  The  physical  eye  will  not 
reveal  this  soul-growth,  only  the  eye  of  soul  can 
do  it.  Joan  of  Arc  had  this  seeing  eye,  and  it 
is  not  altogether  fantasy  that  caused  the  author 
of  the  stage  production  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans 
to  make  Joan  say,  at  the  time  of  battle,  "Did  ye 
not  see  the  Master?"  ''Did  ye  not  see  our 
Leader?''  The  generals  did  not  see,  for  they  had 
not  the  seeing  eye  of  Joan;  but  she  saw  and  was 
inspired,  and  became  the  inspiration  of  others. 
Our  best  missionaries  both  see  Him  and  hear  Him, 
and  their  strange  psychic  power  and  strength  is 
not  altogether  dissimilar  to  the  vision  which  was 
seen  and  heard  by  the  little  maid  of  Domremy. 
No  minister  could  preach  for  a  week  without 
some  measure  of  this  vision.  Of  course,  it  is  a 
complete  shifting  of  the  centre  of  gravity  of  life 
to  base  action  on  unseen  verities;  and  it  is  a  rev- 
olution in  one's  soul  to  make  life  pivot  on  faith, 
and  love  and  trust;  it  is  vouchsafed  to  but  few  to 


108  MAN  ENSOULED 

comprehend  fully  the  vision,  and  act  upon  it. 
There  is  no  better  place  for  us  to  develop  this 
soul's  eye,  than  in  this  world  of  ours,  where  pain, 
sorrow  and  sin  test  and  evolve  it.  Without  this 
soul's  eye,  adapted,  fitted,  adjusted,  and  trained 
for  the  rarer  atmosphere  of  Paradise,  it  would 
mean  nothing  to  go  there,  since  one  could  not  see 
without  an  eye  trained  to  see.  An  Indian  legend 
tells  of  a  young  Indian  hunter,  whose  sister  had 
died,  and  he  yearned  to  see  her;  in  a  dream  he 
left  his  body  and  went  to  the  happy  hunting 
grounds,  and  saw  her;  but  she  could  show  him 
nothing  of  the  beauties  of  her  new  world,  because 
he  had  no  soul's  eye;  soon  his  little  sister  saw  that 
it  was  no  happy  place  for  her  brother,  and  then 
told  him  that  he  must  return  again  to  earth,  and 
there  grow  the  eye  of  soul  and  of  faith;  he  did  so, 
and  then  by  sorrow,  trial  and  hardship  gained 
that  which  we  too  must  gain,  the  seeing  and  hear- 
ing soul. 

Not  only  can  the  soul  develop  a  seeing  eye,  but 
also  an  hearing  ear  each  for  its  own  soul.  With 
this  ear  of  the  soul  we  can  hear  God  speaking  to 
us.  Often  and  again,  we  wish  that  God  would 
speak  to  us  and  tell  us  what  He  would  have  us 
do.  We  often  feel  bitterly,  as  did  Job  of  old,  the 
great  silences  of  God,  and  we  repeat  words  simi- 


CAN  HEAR  HIS  VOICE  109 

lar  to  his,  "Oh,  that  I  knew  where  to  find  Him." 
Or  we  say  as  did  Isaiah,  "Verily,  Thou  art  a  God 
that  hidest  Thyself!"  Now  God  does  speak  to 
us,  and  He  speaks  in  many  ways.  The  trouble 
is  that  we  have  not  trained  ourselves  to  hear. 
We  are  so  busy  talking  to  God,  that  we  leave  no 
time  to  listen.  So  it  happens  that  many  can  go 
out  into  the  woods  and  see  nothing  but  trees;  or 
go  far  out  at  sea  and  perceive  nothing  but  water; 
whereas  another,  who  has  had  his  soul's  eye  and 
ear  opened  can  see  the  Almighty  all  about  and 
around  him,  and  can  hear  His  voice  out  of  the 
burning  bushes,  see  His  guiding  star,  know  Him 
when  He  comes  nearer  upon  the  water,  saying, 
"It  is  I,  be  not  afraid!"  We  too  can  learn  to 
hear  God's  voice.    How? 

The  animals  are  all  led  by  instinct.  The  birds 
go  southward  and  northward  again,  never  much 
too  early  or  too  late.  The  salmon  migrates  from 
its  birth-place  on  the  Columbia,  seeks  the  ocean, 
and  after  two  years,  returns  to  its  native  river, 
having  borne  three  names  differing  according  to 
age  and  place.  The  bee  builds  a  cell  of  hexag- 
onal form,  that  particular  shape  being  the  larg- 
est and  strongest  that  can  be  formed  out  of  a  given 
amount  of  material.  Throughout  the  animal  king- 
dom there  is  no  debating  nor  questioning  as  to 


no  MAN  ENSOULED 

what  shall  be  done,  for  instinct  tells  the  animal 
just  what  is  to  be  done.  Our  own  animal  frames 
also  do  certain  things  by  instinct,  such  as  putting 
out  the  hands  to  ward  off  any  blow,  and  our  eye- 
lids shut  instinctively,  even  before  our  conscious 
self  tells  us  of  impending  danger.  As  animal 
creatures,  then,  we  have  instincts,  but  there  is 
much  more  to  us  than  animal,  we  have  souls  and 
we  know  we  have,  and  these  souls  yearn  at  times 
for  leading. 

Among  the  means  for  speaking  and  communi- 
cating with  our  fellows,  is  the  alphabet.  This 
alphabet  is  easy  enough  to  learn,  but  it  took  ages 
for  it  to  develop.  The  letter  *'  M  "  came  from  the 
Egyptian  word  for  *'owl,"  mulak,  and  its  hiero- 
glyph was  a  little  owlet;  the  characteristic  of  an 
owl  is  the  pointed  ears,  and  the  hieroglyph  shows 
them  prominently,  so  that  the  two  points  of  our 
letter  "M"  can  be  regarded  as  the  Uneal  descend- 
ants of  the  owFs  ears.  The  letter  ''A"  comes 
from  the  conventional  sign  or  hieroglyph  used  for 
the  word  "eagle";  and  our  letter  "D"  from  the 
word  meaning  "hand."  Such  is  our  alphabet  in 
evolution,  and  by  it  we  communicate  with  one 
another.  If  we  are  gifted  in  drawing  and  paint- 
ing we  can  convey  our  ideas  to  others  in  these 
ways,  and  a  genius,  like  Michael  Angelo,  could 


APPREHENDS  DEITY  111 

give  his  thoughts  to  the  world  in  four  methods — 
by  letters,  painting,  sculpture,  architecture. 

There  are  more  ways  than  by  the  sense  of  sight 
that  others  can  communicate  to  us  and  we  to 
them.  Sounds  can  talk  to  us  in  their  own  way, 
as  a  school-bell,  which  we  used  to  hear  and  obey 
in  the  years  that  are  gone.  To  hear  that  same 
bell  in  after  years  is  to  be  carried  back  to  boy- 
hood in  a  moment.  Another  sense  which  can  be 
used  to  whisper  to  us  and  to  influence  us  is  the 
sense  that  awakens  at  the  fragrance  of  a  flower; 
perhaps  a  flower  which  was  the  favorite  of  some 
loved  one  who  governed  us  by  love  in  the  past; 
to  get  that  fragrance  to-day,  is  tantamount  to 
coming  once  more  under  the  influence  of  the  one 
we  loved.  The  sense  of  touch  is  the  first  to 
awaken  in  the  child,  and  the  newest  method  for 
teaching  children  to  write,  is  not  by  sense  of  sight, 
but  by  touch. 

Thus  there  are  voices  which  speak  to  souls  in 
many  ways.  In  this  physical  world  in  which  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being  to-day,  a  world 
of  rock,  earth,  water  and  so  forth,  a  world  to  be 
seen  by  the  eye,  heard  by  the  ear,  touched  by  the 
hand, — in  such  a  world,  a  brain  and  an  organism 
are  needed;  but  a  soul  does  not  need  sensory 
nerves  nor  a  material  brain.    A  spirit  does  not 


112  MAN  ENSOULED 

require  an  organism.  In  that  finer,  subtler  "Un- 
seen Universe/'  which  transcends  this  world  of 
sense,  there  is  a  finer,  rarer  atmosphere,  of  which 
the  first  ghmpses  were  obtained  when  the  Roent- 
gen rays  were  discovered.  Then,  for  the  first 
time,  it  was  perceived  how  there  could  be  a  medium 
as  much  finer  than  our  air,  as  our  atmosphere  is  finer 
than  water;  and  it  was  for  the  first  time  seen  that 
a  spirit  might  live  in  that  finer  ether  in  the  same 
way  as  we  live  in  our  air,  and  as  fishes  live  and 
breathe  in  their  denser  medium.  All  this  is  more 
than  merely  hinted  at  in  Prof.  Crooke's  "radiant 
energy, "  and  it  is  the  fast-growing  belief  in  scien- 
tific minds  that  "there  is  no  fact  in  physics, 
chemistry  nor  mechanics  that  contravenes  a  the- 
ory of  an  'electro-luminous  organism'  for  man, 
and  it  may  exist  already  unseen  and  unrecog- 
nized in  the  present  physical  body. "  Life  with- 
out brain  or  sense  perception,  or  organism,  as  we 
now  understand  brain,  sense  and  organism,  is 
perfectly  possible.  A  life  as  free  as  are  our 
thoughts  even  now,  which  roam  far  away  from 
our  present  earthy  brain  and  sense  power.  Now 
to  such  an  organism,  sensory  nerves  and  brain 
would  be  unnecessary.  This  spirit  body  has  been 
called  the  "subliminal  self."  Moreover,  the  dis- 
solution of  the  present  material  body  would  in 


FREE  FROM  FETTERS  113 

no  way  whatever  affect  this  new  body.  A  soul 
does  not  need  letters  of  the  alphabet,  nor  sounds, 
nor  tastes,  nor  odors,  nor  contact,  nor  brain,  as 
does  our  present  physical  body.  God  tells  the 
animal  what  to  do  by  instinct;  He  speaks  to  us 
through  our  sensory  nerves  and  brain  to  our 
minds;  but  more  than  that.  He  speaks  to  our 
souls,  now,  and  He  will  speak  again  to  them  in  the 
hereafter,  and  we  can  hear  Him  if  we  only  will. 
Browning  said,  that  the  scale  of  man's  nature  is 
too  large  for  the  present.  In  the  ascent  of  the 
mountain  of  knowledge,  man  was  never  satisfied. 

^'I  cannot  chain  my  soul:  it  will  not  rest 

In  its  clay  person. 

It  has  strange  powers,  feelings,  desires 

Which  I  cannot  account  for  nor  explain:  they  live 

Referring  to  some  state  of  life  unknown; 

And  thus  I  know  the  earth  is  not  my  sphere, 

For  I  cannot  so  narrow  me,  but  that 

I  still  exceed  it. " 

Otherwise  man  were  superfluously  endowed. 
Intellect  is  not  confined  to  history,  geology  and 
such,  but  to  the  stars,  and  on  to  God  himself. 
Man  alone  has  ideas  and  ideals:  he  has  a  soul 
transcending  the  universe,  and  contemplates  the 
perfections  of  beauty,  happiness,  goodness,  as 
M.  Piat  said  in  Destinee  de  F Homme: — *'Our 
thought  is  not  enclosed  and  limited  as  the  brute. " 


114  MAN  ENSOULED 

We  desire  perfection  and  we  never  attain  it,  while 
every  desire  of  the  beast  can  be  satisfied.  All 
the  resources  of  a  metropolis  could  not  satisfy 
any  man  permanently. 

Nature's  desires  and  instincts  are  all  matched 
by  satisfying  realities:  fishes  in  the  tropics  long 
for  cool  water;  birds  in  the  autumn  long  for  a 
warmer  atmosphere,  and  neither  the  fish  nor  the 
bird  are  disappointed,  but  start  for  the  change  it 
desires  and  for  a  place  it  perhaps  never  saw. 
Shall  man  alone  not  have  his  instinct  for  eternal 
life  satisfied?  There  is  the  homing  instinct  in 
every  heart. 

"Can  it  be? 
Matter  immortal?  and  shall  spirit  die? 
Above  the  nobler,  shall  less  noble  rise? 
Shall  man  alone,  for  whom  all  else  survives, 
No  resurrection  know?    Shall  man  alone. 
Imperial  man,  be  sown  in  barren  ground, 
Less  privileged  than  grain  on  which  he  fed? 

Still  seems  it  strange  that  thou  shouldst  live 

forever? 
It  is  less  strange  that  thou  shouldst  live  at  all! 
This  is  a  miracle,  and  that  no  more. " 

The  very  history  of  development  has  made  it  sci- 
entific to  hope,  by  showing  that  life  is  not  merely 
change  perpetual  but  progress  towards  the  goal. 
The  body  is  always  in  flux,  while  for  faith,  hope 


IMMORTALITY   DEMANDED  llo 

and  love  there  is  no  process  of  decay;  these  quali- 
ties have  neither  time  relations  nor  time  boun- 
daries.    Tennyson's  vision  was: — 

"Yet  in  the  dark  unknown, 
Perfect  the  circles  seem, 
Even  as  the  bridge's  arch 
Is  rounded  by  the  stream." 

Our  personalities  are  witnesses,  for  the  material 
brain  with  which  our  ego  did  its  thinking  ten  or 
twenty  years  ago,  has  passed  entirely  away;  but 
memory  is  more  than  mere  brain  tradition;  the 
real  ego  survives,  and  will  survive  the  death  of  the 
material  brain,  in  the  same  way  as  the  ego  which 
manages  a  wireless  station  survives  after  the  de- 
struction of  the  machine.  Cicero,  in  the  Tusculan 
Disputations,  held  the  doctrine  that  the  souls  of 
men  continue  permanently  in  existence.  Prof. 
Fiske,  in  the  Destiny  of  Man,  page  116,  wrote, 
"ImmortaHty  is  not  demonstrable,  but  is  an  act 
of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God's  work." 
Again,  page  110,  **The  materiaUstic  assumption 
that  the  life  of  the  soul  ends  with  the  life  of  the 
body,  is  perhaps  the  most  colossal  assumption 
ever  known."  Bruce  wrote,  ''The  true  ground 
for  immortality  is  the  dignity  of  human  nature, 
for  man,  even  at  his  worst,  is  still  a  child  of  God. " 
John  Stuart  Mill  said,  ''There  is  no  scientific  evi- 


116  MAN  ENSOULED 

dence  against  immortality  of  soul. "    Sir  Oliver 

Lodge  wrote,  '*  Immortality  is  the  persistence  of 

the  essential  and  real:  it  applies  to  things  which 

the  universe  has  gained  and  cannot  let  go:  it  is 

the  conservation  of  value." 

"Alas  for  him  who  never  sees 
The  stars  shine  through  his  cypress  trees; 
Who,  hopeless,  lays  his  dead  away 
Nor  looks  to  see  the  rising  day 
Across  the  mournful  marbles  play. 
Who  has  not  learned  in  hours  of  faith, 
That  truth  to  flesh  and  blood  unknown, 
That  life  is  ever  Lord  of  Death — 
That  love  can  never  lose  his  own. " 

The  laws  of  nature  are  the  voices  of  God  speak- 
ing to  us  and  telling  us  not  to  do  certain  things. 
Such  and  such  things  we  may  freely  do,  but  such 
and  such  fruit  "ye  shall  not  eat. "  Yet  sometimes 
we  do  not  hear,  and  then  we  have  pain.  After- 
wards we  remember  that  the  voice  of  physiology 
told  us  that  we  were  not  to  break  her  laws,  and 
that  if  we  did  not  keep  them,  we  would  suffer. 
The  Decalogue  is  the  protecting  power  of  the  Al- 
mighty. The  trouble  is  that  we  refuse  to  hear 
His  voice,  and  so  we  suffer  for  our  own  thoughtless- 
ness and  dullness.  His  voice  wished  to  warn  us, 
but  we  would  not  listen.  The  will-o'-the-wisp 
tries  hard  to  warn  people  away  from  the  poison- 
ous swamp,  and  some  foolish  folk  refuse  to  take 


VOICES  OF  FRIENDS  117 

the  warning,  while  others  heed  and  avoid  the 
danger. 

Another  of  God's  voices  to  us  is  the  voice  of 
circumstance.  Circumstances  are  the  guide-posts 
along  Ufe's  highway,  and  those  who  have  eyes  to 
see  can  keep  the  straight  though  narrow  way. 
We  find  our  lives  surrounded  by  certain  eventa 
over  which  we  have  little  or  no  control.  We  are 
not  responsible  for  them,  and  although  it  is  said 
that  "Every  man  is  the  architect  of  his  own  for- 
tune," it  is  also  said,  more  profoundly,  "There's 
a  Divinity  that  shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew  them 
how  ye  may."  These  circumstances  in  which 
we  find  ourselves,  tell  us  in  no  uncertain  way  what 
we  are  to  do,  although  they  may  merely  seem  to 
tell  us  what  we  cannot  do.  Bishop  Hunting- 
ton used  to  say,  "If  you  come  upon  a  door,  and 
that  door  will  not  open — don't  try  to  go  in." 
Many  times  in  life,  the  one  thing  that  circum- 
stances allow  us  to  do,  is  the  one  thing  we  ought 
to  do.  Thus  does  the  voice  of  circumstance  and 
environment  speak  to  us,  and  it  is  vox  dm. 

Another  voice  that  we  can  hear  very  plainly, 
guiding  us  on  our  way,  is  what  friends  say.  The 
kindly  counsel  of  those  near  to  us,  would  often, 
if  only  taken,  save  us  from  heart-ache.  We 
could  have  entertained  many  an  angel  unawares. 


118  MAN  ENSOULED 

if  we  had  stopped  to  hear  the  advice  of  these 
friends  of  ours.  This  is  the  thought  contained 
in  the  ancient  phrase,  Vox  populi,  vox  dei.  Then 
every  one  of  us  has  a  special  indweUing  friend — 
Conscience.  His  voice  is  one  to  which  we  some- 
times Usten,  and  never  regret  having  obeyed. 
The  voice  is  referred  to  in  the  lines,  "When  duty 
whispers  low,  'Thou  must',  the  youth  replies, 
*I  can.'  "  The  proof  of  all  this  is  in  an  appeal 
to  the  individual  experience  of  our  own  lives.  We 
all  know  that  had  we  but  listened  to  the  voices 
of  God,  speaking  through  His  laws,  the  circum- 
stances, and  our  best  friends,  we  would  often  have 
escaped  the  troubles  into  which  we  fell,  simply 
and  solely  because  we  refused  to  hearken  and 
obey.  Were  God  to  speak  from  the  sky,  and  more 
directly  than  now,  man  would  be  struck  dumb  and 
lose  his  power  of  self-expression  and  his  free-will. 
There  is  another  voice  that  speaks  to  us,  and 
clearly  and  plainly  to  our  souls.  It  is  the  voice 
of  the  Master.  The  world  for  nearly  twenty 
centuries  has  seen  and  heard  and  followed  Him. 
Napoleon,  in  his  contemplative  years  at  St.  Hel- 
ena, declared  that  the  divinity  of  Christ  was 
proven  by  the  power  which  He  had  to  lead  men, 
although  not  immediately  present.  Napoleon 
said  that  this  was  a  power  which  had  not  been 


VOICE  OF  THE  MASTER  119 

given  to  any  man,  for  neither  Alexander  the  Great, 
nor  Caesar,  nor  Charlemagne,  nor  himself  had  the 
abihty  to  lead  and  inspire  men,  unless  actually 
present  to  see  and  be  seen  of  them.  He  declared 
that  he  could  get  men  anywhere  to  rise  and  fol- 
low him,  if  he  only  could  but  see  them,  and  speak 
to  them,  and  let  them  hear  and  see  him.  So 
Napoleon  gave  it  as  his  conviction  that  Christ 
was  divine,  because  to  Him  alone  had  it  been 
given  to  speak  across  the  centuries,  and  have 
countless  millions  rise  and  follow  Him. 

Moreover,  He  tells  us  just  how  we  are  to  follow 
Him — how  to  work.  The  secret  of  it  is  simply 
to  work  as  He  did — that  is,  with  a  sense  of  divine 
partnership.  "His  Father^s  business"  was  a 
phrase  early  in  His  mind;  "My  Father  worketh, 
and  I  work."  So  He  went  about  that  business 
and  work,  with  a  serene  consciousness  of  working 
in  harmony  with  the  divine  currents  of  the  cos- 
mos; to  work,  not  against  the  currents,  but  with 
them,  as  did  the  Arctic  explorers  who  found  that 
to  attempt  the  pole  via  Greenland  was  to  work 
against  the  ice-floes,  and  so  they  approached  their 
object  through  Siberia,  and  were  helped  by  the 
movement  of  the  ice. 

We  can  place  ourselves  in  these  divine  currents 
by  such  means  as  art,  literature,  and  church-go- 


120  MAN  ENSOULED 

ing.  The  inspiration  to  higher  ideals  can  be  se- 
cured by  placing  on  the  walls  of  our  rooms,  some 
of  the  world's  m£isterpieces  which  can  be  pur- 
chased now  so  readily;  the  Bible  as  literature  will 
also  be  of  potent  force  in  bringing  us  into  align- 
ment with  the  diviner  currents;  and  the  some- 
times harder  work  of  church-attendance  will  give 
subtle  strength  which  reacts  on  others  as  well  as 
ourselves. 

Nor  is  success,  as  the  world  measures  it,  essen- 
tial. There  never  was  a  life  which  seemed  so 
colossal  a  failure  from  the  earthly  stand-point  as 
that  hfe  which  seemed  to  end  on  the  cross.  Suc- 
cess is  not  vital — effort  is.     Aldrich  wrote : 

"Build  as  thou  canst,  and  as  the  light  is  given, 
Build  as  thou  canst,  unspoiled  by  praise  or  blame. 
Then,  if  at  last,  what  thou  hast  built  shall  fall 
Dissolve,  vanish — take  thyself  no  shame. 
They  fail,  and  they  alone,  who  have  not  striven." 

Lowell's  hnes  are : 

"Greatly  begin  whiles  thou  hast  time, 
But  for  a  line,  be  that  sublime, 
Not  failure,  but  low  aim  is  crime. " 

In  the  hall  of  one  of  the  colleges  in  England  there 
hangs  a  frame  inclosing  quotations  from  Lincoln. 
One  paragraph  reads,  "I  am  not  bound  to  win, 
but  I  am  bound  to  be  true.     I  am  not  bound  to 


MAN  AT  PEACE  121 

succeed,  but  I  am  bound  to  live  up  to  the  light 
I  have." 

Longfellow  spoke  of  high  aim,  and  how  "e very- 
arrow  that  flies  feels  the  attraction  of  earth," 
and  was  all  too  easily  lost  in  the  jungle  of  the  un- 
achieved. If  we  follow  the  Great  Exemplar's 
way,  we  can  hope  to  say  in  part,  "I  have  finished 
the  work  which  Thou  gavest  me  to  do";  and  with 
the  Apostle,  ''I  can  do  all  through  Christ  which 
strengtheneth  me." 

The  poem-prayer  of  Whittier's  comes  to  mind: 

"Drop  Thy  still  dews  of  quietness 
Till  all  our  strivings  cease; 
Take  from  our  souls  the  strain  and  stress. 
And  let  our  ordered  lives  confess 
The  beauty  of  Thy  peace. " 

No,  Jesus  has  not  vanished  from  among  the  ac- 
tivities of  men,  for  He  lives  in  the  hearts  and  lives 
of  myriads  of  Christians.  We  cannot  explain 
how  it  is  now,  but  it  will  be  understood  better 
later  in  the  "Unseen  Universe,"  when  the  secrets 
of  the  worlds  will  be  revealed.  This  much  we  do 
know,  namely,  that  it  is  not  the  cold  splendor 
of  a  star  which  is  before  us,  but  it  is  a  living, 
vital  personality,  leading  us,  speaking  to  us,  guid- 
ing us  homewards.  It  is  in  some  such  way  as 
this  that  we  can  accept  reasonably,  and  in  larger 


122  MAN  ENSOULED 

measure  than  heretofore,  what  is  popularly  known 
as  the  Providential  leading,  and  by  accepting  it 
in  the  largest  way,  our  lives  can  be  saner,  quieter, 
and  full  of  cheer. 

"To  the  over-guiding  will 
My  own   I   gladly   yield. 
And  while  my  little  craft  outstands 
I  sail  with  orders  sealed. 

"Sometime,  I  know  not  when  nor  how 
All  things  will  be  revealed, 
But  until  then,  content  ami 
To  sail  with  orders  sealed. 

"  The  salt  sea  waves  my  bulwarks  press, 
Beneath  me  yawns  the  green  abyss; 
Behind  my  path,  by  night  and  mom 
The  fierce  wind  blows  his  hunter's  horn. 

"  I  am  not  daunted,  for  I  feel 
My  Steersman's  hand  upon  the  wheel. " 


CHAPTER  VI 

CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

"Children  of  yesterday, 

Heirs  of  to-morrow, 
What  are  you  weaving. 

Labor  and  sorrow? 
Look  to  your  loom  again, 

Faster  and  faster 
Fly  the  great  shuttles 

Prepared  by  the  Master. 
Life's  in  the  loom! 

Room  for  it — Room!" 

"Children  of  yesterday, 

Heirs  of  to-morrow, 
Look  at  your  fabric 

Of  labor  and  sorrow; 
Seamy  and  dark  with 

Despair  and  disaster; 
Turn  it,  and  lo, 

The  design  of  the  Master! 
The  Lord's  in  the  loom! 

Room  for  Him — Room!" 

We  have  souls,  and  the  world  is  for  their  develop- 
ment; moreover,  God  speaks  to  us  and  guides  us, 
therefore  we  need  not  have  fear.  The  word 
**fear"  occurs  frequently  in  scripture,  while  the 
negative  form,  "fear  not,"  although  less  frequent 
in  the  type,  is  nevertheless  the  real  undercurrent, 
the  fundamental  motif,  the  major  diapason  of  the 
whole  Bible.     The  true  biblical  message  is  "Fear 


124         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

Not!"  It  is  only  a  primary,  primitive  idea  of 
Christianity  that  teaches  fear.  We  have  read 
our  Bibles  wrongly  if  we  say,  ''The  fear  of  the 
Lord  is  the  beginning  of  vnsdom/^  for  we  ought  to 
read  thus,  "The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning 
of  wisdom."  To  begin  in  fear,  and  then  to  con- 
tinue in  fear,  is  to  remain  in  the  lowest  grade  of 
spiritual  training  and  growth;  but  to  begin  in  fear, 
and  to  ascend  towards  a  love  of  God,  is  the  right 
attitude,  and  is  the  idea  which  ought  to  be  con- 
veyed, but  rarely  is,  by  so  seemingly  small  a 
matter  as  the  proper  accentuation  of  one  word 
in  the  reading  of  the  quotation.  One  of  the  Col- 
lects of  the  Church  pleads  that  we  may  have  "a 
perpetual  fear  and  love  of  His  holy  name,"  and 
at  first  thought  it  seems  as  though  there  were  a 
contradiction  involved  in  the  wording  of  the 
petition;  yet,  a  deeper  insight  into  human  nature 
shows  the  wisdom  of  the  prayer,  for  there  is  al- 
ways some  element  of  fear  in  true  love's  growth — 
a  great  fear  lest  something  should  happen  to  take 
away  that  love.  As  time  goes  on,  and  as  we  bet- 
ter trust  the  one  we  love,  we  find  that  fear  was 
but  a  stepping-stone  to  the  higher  degree  of  affec- 
tion, and  in  the  end,  we  attain  a  realization  of  the 
words,  "There  is  no  fear  in  love,  for  perfect  love 
casteth  out  fear. " 


FEAR  NOT !  125 

Two  pictures,  one  from  the  old  Testament  and 
the  other  from  the  New,  can  be  recalled  to  mind, 
which  were  instances  of  the  command,  'Tear  Not !", 
given  authoritatively.  One  where  the  prophet 
Ehsha,  surrounded  by  the  armies  of  Israel's 
enemies,  tells  the  young  man  who  was  with  him, 
'Tear  Not!",  and  asks  God  that  the  eyes  of  his 
companion  should  be  opened,  so  that  he  too  might 
see  the  horses  and  the  chariots  of  the  host  of  heaven ; 
and  EHsha  contrasts  the  heavenly  host  with  the 
Syrian  army  thus,  "They  that  be  with  us  are  more 
than  they  that  be  with  them."  The  other  pic- 
ture is  the  instance  where  Christ  speaks  to  the 
frightened  sailors  on  the  lake  of  Genessaret,  and 
tells  them  not  to  fear,  "Peace!  It  is  I."  The 
hymn. of  AnatoHus  describes  this  picture  vividly: — 

"Fierce  the  wild  billow, 
Dark  was  the  night, 
Oars  labored  heavily, 
Foam  glimmered  white; 
Trembled  the  mariners, 
Danger  was  nigh; 
Then  said  the  God  of  Gods, 
'Peace!    It  is  I!'" 

and  the  last  stanza  of  this  noble  hymn,  is  the 
prayer: — 

"  Jesu  I  Deliverer  ! 
Come  Thou  to  me, 


1^         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

Keep  Thou  my  voyagings 
O'er  life's  rough  sea! 
Thou,  when  the  storm  of  Death 
Roars  sweeping  by, 

Whisper,  O  Truth  of  truth, 
'Peace!    It  is  I!' " 

It  isn^t  the  great  things  in  life  that  give  us  our 
fears  and  our  grinding  anxieties,  but  the  small  and 
petty  troubles.  Great  leaders  are  sustained  by  the 
very  magnitude  of  their  projects,  and  the  voice 
of  fear  is  not  easily  heard  in  the  din  of  the  strife. 
Led  by  the  inspiration  of  their  ideals,  the  voice 
of  fear  was  not  heard  by  Arnold  of  Brescia,  when 
he  pleaded  to  have  the  laws  revived,  and  was 
burned  at  the  stake;  nor  by  Dante  who  suffered 
exile;  nor  Savanarola  preaching  against  the  tyr- 
anny of  the  nobles  and  organized  greed  of  both 
labor  and  capital.  We  have  no  work  similar  to 
theirs,  and  we  hear  very  distinctly  the  voices  of 
fear,  apprehension  and  anxieties;  and  although 
our  anxieties  are  for  the  most  part  wholly  gratui- 
tous, since  many  of  our  most  carefully  anticipated 
troubles  never  become  actual,  yet,  our  fancied 
trials  and  troubles  are  almost  as  poignant  as  though 
they  were  quite  real.  We  can  all  find  the  true  and 
deep  meaning  in  the  Collect,  ''Defend  us  from 
all  dangers,  and  the /ear  of  them." 

Now  what  is  our  way  of  escape?    The  way  is 


SWORD  OF  FAITH  127 

told  to  perfection  in  Wagner's  '* Siegfried."  A 
dragon  was  abroad  in  the  land  and  the  inhabi- 
tants were  in  terror;  this  dragon  could  be  killed 
only  by  one  who  knew  no  fear,  and  Siegfried  alone 
knew  none.  He  made  ready  to  hunt  the  dragon, 
and  he  asked  the  smithy  to  forge  a  sword;  these 
swords  were  admired  by  him  as ''skewers,"  ''pretty 
toys,"  but  they  were  worthless  in  temper,  for 
he  broke  them  in  the  first  tests;  then  Sieg- 
fried forged  his  own  sword  from  metal  given  him 
by  his  father,  and  he  named  it  "Nothung",  or 
"Needful";  and  with  this  sword,  he  killed  the 
dragon.  The  marvellous  opera  tells  of  Bondage, 
Divine  Tribulation,  and  Peace,  in  its  motifs; 
furthermore,  as  we  come  to  know  the  depth  of 
meaning  in  the  opera,  we  begin  to  see  that  Sieg- 
fried is  representative  of  man,  for  in  him  we  see 
the  same  story  of  bondage,  and  tribulation,  sent 
for  soul-growth,  and  finally,  peace,  the  great 
peace,  which  comes  to  all  those  who  like  Siegfried 
have  learned  how  to  make  the  battle  successfully. 
For  we,  too,  have  our  dragons  to  fight,  and  their 
names  are  Doubt,  Fear,  and  Death;  and  we  can 
conquer  all  these  dragons  by  forging  our  own 
swords,  from  metal  which  our  heavenly  Father 
gives  to  each  and  all  of  His  children.  The  name 
of  Siegfried's  sword  was   Nothung,  the  name  of 


128         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

ours  is  Faith.  We  each  must  forge  our  own 
sword,  and  we  can  do  so  by  the  simple  rule  which 
obtains  in  the  scientific  laboratories  of  our  day, 
the  rule  of  "try  it. "  Columbus  tried  his  faith  and 
found  a  new  continent;  every  inventor  tries  the 
vision  of  his  new  machine  or  process;  every  friend 
which  we  have  we  know  by  trying  and  thus  prov- 
ing the  friendship;  therefore,  try  it.  Faith  in 
God  will  reveal  his  love,  and  then  one  can  pass  on 
up  into  the  higher  altitude  of  the  love  of  God  and 
away  from  fear.  The  result  of  it  will  be  that  we 
can  live  our  lives  more  serenely,  for  we  shall  feel 
that  we  are  in  His  keeping.  ''Worry  is  distrust" 
is  the  phrase  of  a  modern  prophet;  again,  "Worry 
is  weakness."  An  older  prophet  wrote,  "Com- 
mit thy  way  unto  Him  and  He  will  bring  it  to 
pass. "  Isaiah  knew  the  truth  of  it,  for  he  said, 
"Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace  whose 
mind  is  stayed  on  Thee."  Faber's  lines  tell  the 
story  thus: 

"  For  the  love  of  God  is  broader 
Than  the  measures  of  man's  mind; 
And  the  heart  of  the  Eternal 
Is  most  wonderfully  kind. 

"  Yet  we  make  His  love  too  narrow 
By  false  measures  of  our  own; 
And  we  magnify  His  strictness 
With  a  zeal  He  will  not  own." 


CONTENTMENT  129 

Thus  trying  out  our  faith,  and  rising  as  in  a  true 

evolution,  we  can  see,  when  we  look  backwards 

over  our  course,  that  frequently  the  very  things 

we  sought  and  prayed  for   once,   would   have 

checked  our  soul-growth,  had  our  prayers  been 

granted.     Shakespeare  knew  this  for  he  said : 

''We,  ignorant  of  ourselves, 
Beg  often  our  own  harm,  which  the  wise  powers 
Deny  us  for  our  good;  so  Faith  finds  profit 
By  losing  our  prayers." 

Some  prayed  for  riches  that  they  might  be 

happy,  but  were  given  poverty  that  they  might 

be  wise.     Others  asked  to  rule  that  they  might 

be  great,  but  were  made  to  serve  that  they  might 

be  greater.    We  asked  for  all  things  that  we  might 

enjoy  life,  we  were  given  a  new  life  by  Faith.     Our 

lives  entered  upon  a  new  sphere  of  existence.     Our 

dragon  of  doubt  and  fear  is  slain  by  the  sword 

which  we  have  made  for  ourselves,  and  we  are 

able  to  say,  not  merely,  "It  is  going  to  be  all 

right,"  but  "It  is  all  right,  nowV 

"Whichever  way  the  wind  doth  blow. 
Some  heart  is  glad  to  have  it  so : 
Then  blow  it  East  or  blow  it  West, 
The  wind  that  blows — that  wind  is  best. 

My  little  bark  sails  not  alone, 
A  thousand  fleets  from  every  zone 
Are  out  upon  a  thousand  seas, 
And  what  for  me  were  favoring  breeze 


130         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

Might  dash  another  with  the  shock 

Of  doom  upon  some  hidden  rock. 

And  so  I  do  not  dare  to  pray 

For  winds  to  waft  me  on  my  way, 

But  trust  it  to  an  Higher  Will 

To  stay  or  speed  me,  knowing  well  that  He 

Who  launched  my  bark  will  sail  with  me, 

And  bring  me,  every  peril  past 

Within  His  sheltering  Home  at  last. 

Then,  whichever  way  the  wind  doth  blow, 

My  heart  is  glad  to  have  it  so: 

And  blow  it  East  or  blow  it  West, 

The  wind  that  blows, — that  wind  is  best. " 

Does  God  care?  How  can  so  great  a  being 
care  for  so  small  an  entity?  The  soul  aristocracy 
of  the  world  has  met  these  queries,  and  has  re- 
plied affirmatively,  that  God  does  care.  Of  course, 
the  search  is  tantamount  to  a  discovery  or  redis- 
covery of  God,  but  we  need  not  fear  the  search  for 
any  reason  of  the  vastness  of  the  work;  all  we 
need  is  to  go  about  it  in  the  right  way.  Many  try 
the  wrong  way,  and  seek  to  find  Him  by  following 
the  reason  alone;  reason  alone  will  never  bring 
us  home  to  God,  nor  give  us  the  answer  whether 
God  cares  for  us  or  no;  reason  is  to  be  used,  and 
thoroughly,  for  Jesus  himself  commanded,  "Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind." 
*'Mind, "  or  reason,  was  not  placed  first  in  the 


DOES  GOD  CARE?  131 

series.  Reason  is  most  powerful  corroborative  tes- 
timony, after  once  the  heart  and  soul  have  found 
Him;  but  by  the  way  of  reason  alone,  God  can- 
not be  found.  The  biography  of  Carlyle  shows 
this,  and  the  story  of  his  home-coming  one  late 
evening,  and  hearing  his  father  reading  the  family 
evening  prayers,  while  "he  stayed  outside,"  is 
one  of  the  saddest  pictures  of  a  sad  life.  Carlyle 
sought  for  God  by  the  way  of  reason  alone,  and 
he  failed  and  was  embittered.  There  are  many 
who  thus  "stay  outside"  because  they  use  faulty 
methods  in  the  search  after  God.  "Thou  shalt 
love.  .  .  .  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul."    Heart  and  soul  are  before  "mind." 

The  way  to  find  out  whether  God  does  really 
care,  is  to  find  it  out  in  exactly  the  same  way  that 
we  find  out  the  best  and  the  finest  in  every  depart- 
ment of  knowledge — ^namely,  by  placing  ourselves 
under  the  guidance,  training  and  inspiration  of 
those  who  are  expert  in  their  several  fields.  For 
instance,  in  the  field  of  Hterature,  the  boy  prefers 
at  first  Oliver  Optic,  but  if  he  is  influenced  rightly, 
he  comes  in  time  to  love  Shakespeare,  Browning, 
Plato:  he  has  cultivated  a  taste  for  the  best, 
simply  by  being  with  the  best.  In  the  field  of 
art  the  same  thing  happens;  at  first  we  are  at- 
tracted by  the  flaming  billposters,  and  we  like 


132         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

the  lush  colormg  of  Bouguereau;  but  if  we  asso- 
ciate with  the  best  art,  frequenting  the  galleries 
where  the  best  works  are  before  us,  we  can  grad- 
ually come  to  see  the  beauties  of  BotticeUi,  and 
to  appreciate  the  glories  of  Raphael.  Again,  in 
the  field  of  music,  we  may  perhaps  at  first  like 
Sousa's  marches  best,  and  are  bored  almost  to 
extinction  by  what  youth  and  unculture  calls 
"classical  music";  yet  if  we  follow  our  studies 
through  the  melodies  of  harmony,  and  the  intri- 
cacies of  counter-point,  and  attain  to  some  under- 
standing of  the  mechanics  in  the  mastery  of  tech- 
nique, then  we  can  ascend  into  the  higher  music, 
and  in  some  measure  understand  Wagner,  who 
makes  one  feel  even  more  than  one  hears.  In  all 
these  ways,  we  can  elevate  ourselves  to  the  stand- 
ards accepted  by  the  world  that  really  knows; 
we  trust  these  leaders  in  their  own  special  fields, 
in  the  expectation  that  wider  knowledge,  and  a 
deeper  experience,  will  enable  us  also  to  come  up 
towards  their  higher  degree  of  excellence.  Now 
it  is  exactly  the  same  in  the  field  of  religious  ex- 
perience. We  know  the  geniuses  in  literature, 
art,  music,  and  it  is  to  them,  and  to  them  only, 
that  we  go  to  perfect  our  education  in  those  lines. 
There  are  also  geniuses  in  religious  thought;  men 
who  like  Enoch,  ''walked  with  God."    If  we  re- 


WALKS  WITH  GOD  l^ 

fuse  to  train  ourselves  to  the  best  in  literature, 
art  and  music,  we  can  refuse;  it  will  be  our  own 
loss;  and  precisely  so  in  the  field  of  religion  and 
the  things  of  God;  we  can  refuse  to  find  out 
whether  God  cares,  by  declining  to  hear  what  the 
experts  say.  We  do  not  ask  a  poet  to  instruct 
us  in  music,  nor  the  musician  to  tell  us  of  art, 
and  we  would  not  ask  for  instruction  in  the  things 
of  God  of  any  one  in  the  world  excepting  of  those 
who  know.  This  is  precisely  what  every  one  of 
us  who  has  some  knowledge  of  God  has  done; 
every  one  of  us  has  what  knowledge  of  God  we 
have,  through  some  relationship  and  contact  with 
some  saint  who  knew  God;  perhaps  we  saw  father 
once,  praying  in  secret  on  his  knees;  perhaps  we 
felt  a  mother's  prayers;  perhaps  our  lives  were 
brought  as  by  accident  into  close  contact  with 
some  saint  of  His  who  lit  the  divine  flame  in  our 
own  hearts.  Carlyle  said,  "Soul  is  kindled  by 
soul. "  But  for  religion — not  theology — we  need 
to  go,  not  to  the  leaders  in  literature,  nor  art,  nor 
music,  but  to  those  who  while  yet  they  are  in  this 
world,  even  now  belong  to  the  other  and  higher 
world.  "As  well  imagine  a  man  with  a  sense  of 
sculpture,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "not  cultiva- 
ting it  by  Greek  art,  or  a  man  with  a  sense  of 
poetry  not  cultivating  it  with  the  help  of  Homer 


134         CHRISTIANITY  TRA-NSCENDENT 

and  Shakespeare,  as  a  man  with  a  sense  of  con- 
duct, i.  e.,  a  sense  of  religion,  not  cultivating  it 
with  the  help  of  the  Bible." 

Accepting  this  principle,  we  can  now  go  to  the 
seers,  and  the  men  who  know  God.  There  is  a 
book  of  lives  of  religious  experts.  It  is  that  an- 
cient and  never-out-of-date  book,  the  Bible. 
Here  the  biographies  of  seers,  saints,  prophets, 
reflect  God  as  a  mirror.  They  all  asked  whether 
God  cared,  and  they  one  and  all  found  out  that 
He  did  care.  The  direct  path-way  for  us  towards 
a  knowledge  of  God  is  to  find  God  in  man. 

"No  one  could  tell  me  where  my  soul  might  be, 
I  searched  for  God,  but  God  eluded  me, 
I  sought  my  brother,  and  I  found  all  three. " 

To  learn  about  God,  we  first  must  find  a  man 
who  knows  Him;  and. nowhere  can  we  find  so 
many  that  knew  and  trusted  Him,  as  in  the  bi- 
ographies of  souls,  saints,  and  seers  of  the  Bible. 
Heinrich  Heine  said  that  he  owed  his  enlighten- 
ment to  the  reading  of  a  book,  the  Book,  the  Bible, 
adding,  *'He  who  has  lost  his  God  may  find  Him 
again  in  the  Bible,  and  he  who  has  never  known  Him 
will  there  be  met  by  the  breath  of  the  divine  word." 
The  Bible  should  be  read  not  as  history,  for  it  is 
an  epic;  nor  as  geology,  for  it  never  pretended  to 
be  science;  but  it  should  be  read  to  see  how  men 


EXPEiRIENTiA  DOCET  135 

found  out  God,  and  how  they,  as  experts,  dis- 
covered that  God  did  care  for  them.  Here  we 
come  into  contact  with  real  men,  possessing  our 
nature,  and  who  knew  the  needs,  the  hopes  and 
the  fears  of  our  common  humanity;  they  tell  us 
of  their  struggles,  and  how  they  gained  faith  in 
God;  how  He  brought  them  out  of  the  horrible 
mire  and  clay  and  set  their  feet  upon  a  rock  and 
ordered  their  goings.  These  biographies  are  the 
human  documents  of  the  case.  It  is  the  story  of 
the  gradual  growth  of  man's  spiritual  nature, 
revealing  His  power,  and  showing  Himself  to  us 
so  that  we  cannot  but  see  Him;  and  at  last  we 
discover  that  although  He  has  His  seat  so  high, 
yet  He  humbleth  Himself  to  behold  the  things  on 
earth.  In  the  Hves  of  these  men  we  can  see  the 
power  of  God.  They  felt  it  themselves  and  they 
discovered  that  God  could  care  and  did.  Joseph 
came  to  see  that  his  slavery,  when  they  hurt  his 
feet  in  the  stocks,  was  but  the  prelude  to  his  lead- 
ership as  the  first  executive  in  Egypt,  and  that 
although  his  brethren  meant  it  for  his  harm,  that 
God  turned  it  for  good,  in  that  he  was  sent  be- 
fore them  into  Egypt  to  save  life  in  the  coming 
famine.  Job  discovered  his  God  even  to  the  al- 
titude of  faith  that  could  say,  ''Though  He  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  Him."     Lincoln's  brave  de- 


136         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

cision  to  ''.Do  the  right  as  God  gives  us  the  power 
to  see  the  right,"  shows  the  heart  made  brave 
by  a  knowledge  that  somehow  God  did  care  and 
would  care.  When  we  read  of  these  noblemen 
of  God  who  lived  in  the  absolute  conviction  that 
God  Hves  and  does  care,  men  of  unwavering 
courage,  undaunted  by  all  the  ills  of  life,  ensouled 
characters  facing  life  and  death  with  the  immedi- 
ate presence  of  God  within  them,  we  too  begin 
to  re-discover  God  and  we  come  upon  faith,  and 
hope,  and  trust  for  ourselves.  It  is  not  simply  a 
theory  that  they  invented  but  a  power  that  they 
felt.  They  knew.  The  Apostles,  the  ancient 
martyrs  and  the  modern  saints  have  an  inner 
certainty  and  conviction,  and  were  imbued  with 
a  spirit  making  them  all  veritable  Sons  of  God. 
It  was  not  an  hallucination,  nor  an  experiment, 
but  an  experience.  It  can  be  readily  put  to  test 
by  us;  it  is  not  to  be  proved  by  reason  alone,  but 
in  the  lives  of  others,  and  in  our  own  Hfe;  not  by 
logic,  but  by  experiment.  It  is  not  a  weak  cre- 
duhty;  it  is  not  a  believing  mstead  of  knowing, 
but  a  believing  in  order  to  know.  It  is  an  experi- 
ment which  becomes  an  experience.  It  is  in  the 
words  of  the  hymn, — 

"Finding,  following,  keeping,  struggling, 
Is  He  sure  to  bless? 


GOD  DOES  CARE  137 

Saints,  apostles,  prophets,  martyrs, 
Answer,  'Yes!'" 

It  involves  free-will  in  us  as  free  agents.  We 
can  refuse;  we  pay  heavy  premiums  in  sorrow  and 
sadness  if  we  refuse.  We  can  see  how  others 
succeeded  gloriously,  and  how  their  lives  were 
tinged  throughout  and  imbued  with  the  power  of 
His  might.  Their  inspired  lives  inspire  us.  They 
are  our  spiritual  instructors  and  leaders,  just 
as  we  have  our  instructors  and  leaders  in  litera- 
ture, art  and  music.  It  is  the  divine  scheme  of 
the  world. 

In  the  dome  of  the  reading-room  of  the  Congres- 
sional library  are  huge  mural  paintings;  one  of 
them  represents  the  Hebrews  as  the  genius  for 
religion,  and  the  others  represent  the  work  which 
was  done  by  Rome  in  jurisprudence  and  organi- 
zation, and  Greece  as  instructress  in  art;  the  He- 
brews' Bible  is  for  religion  what  the  great  masters 
are  for  art.  In  their  Bible  we  can  learn  about  the 
leaders  of  the  souls  of  men.  In  this  Bible  we  can 
find  God  and  find  that  He  cares.  At  first  we  will 
not  be  able  to  hear  the  Voice  nor  see  the  Vision, 
but  just  as  surely  as  in  literature,  art  and  music 
we  became  more  able  to  hear  their  special  voice, 
and  to  see  their  vision,  just  so  in  religion,  our  ex- 
perience will  deepen,  our  souls  will  strengthen,  and 


138         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

we  shall  be  able  to  see  Him  because  they  have 
seen  Him,  and  we  shall  know,  as  they  did,  that 
God  can  care  and  does  care.  This  can  be  our 
vision,  our  nearer  vision  of  God,  and  it  not  only 
can  be  increased  day  by  day,  through  continual 
reading  of  the  Biblical  noblemen,  but  can  be 
passed  on  to  others,  searching  after  God.  This 
is  the  glorious  vision  of  God  which  came  to  the 
world  through  His  seers,  saints,  prophets  and 
priests,  and  most  and  chiefest  of  all  through  the 
Messiah,  our  Saviour  and  Redeemer,  of  Whom, 
one  who  knew,  said  that  "God  so  loved  the  world, 
that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son."  And 
then  our  vision  of  God  includes  the  conviction 
that  God  does  care. 

Among  the  cardinal  characteristics  of  Christ- 
ianity is  this,  that  it  is,  above  and  beyond  all 
other  religions,  the  one  religion  of  cheer.  It  is 
the  expectant  religion.  Very  few  of  us  realize 
Christianity's  power  in  creating  happiness  as  a 
habit  of  mind.  There  is  no  duty  we  so  much 
underestimate,  as  the  duty  of  being  happy.  "  By 
being  happy",  says  Stevenson,  "we  sow  anony- 
mous benefits  upon  the  world,  which  remain  un- 
known even  to  ourselves,  and  when  disclosed, 
surprise  no  one  more  than  ourselves."  Chris- 
tianity is  par  excellence,  the  one  religion  of  happi- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  CHEER  139 

ness  and  cheerfulness.  A  Christian  and  only  a 
Christian  can  be  glad  in  adversity,  rich  in  poverty, 
calm  in  the  presence  of  death.  Some  of  us,  who 
bear  the  name  of  Christian,  have  cheer  most  of 
the  time,  and  most  of  us  have  cheer  all  of  the  time, 
but  there  are  few  indeed  of  us  who  have  cheer 
from  our  religion  all  of  the  time.  This  is  not  as 
it  should  be,  and  the  trouble  is  that  we  do  not 
use  the  means  which  are  right  at  our  hands.  By 
way  of  illustration,  there  might  be  recalled  the 
story  of  the  ship-wrecked  sailors  on  a  raft,  perish- 
ing from  lack  of  drinking-water,  and  their  res- 
cuers, on  hearing  their  pitiful  cry  for  "Water!" 
reply,  "Dip  up  the  water  over  the  side;  you  are 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Amazon,  and  all  the  water 
is  fresh."  Just  so,  we  are  in  the  very  midst  of 
happiness,  and  need  only  to  dip  over  the  side. 
Another  illustration  is  the  story  of  the  wrathful 
king,  who  refused  to  obey  the  prophet  and  bathe 
in  Jordan  to  cure  his  leprosy,  until  he  was  asked, 
"If  the  prophet  bade  thee  do  some  great  thing, 
wouldest  thou  not  have  done  it?  How  much  rather 
then,  when  he  biddest  thee  do  some  little  thing?" 
By  refusing  the  little  things  we  deny  ourselves 
the  happiness  we  might  have.  Emerson  wrote 
something  about  the  desirability  of  not  leaving 
the  sky  out  of  one's  landscape;  and  a  wise  oculist 


140         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

once  told  a  patient  to  rest  his  eyes  by  frequently 
looking  upwards.  The  sky  is  near  at  hand,  and 
it  is  easy  to  look  up,  and  the  water  is  just  over  the 
side.  But  true  happiness  is  not  quiescence,  nor 
a  selfish  Nirvana,  nor  an  absorption  into  infinity, 
nor  a  negative  status;  true  happiness  for  God's 
children,  busy  growing  souls  now,  is  a  positive, 
active  evolution  away  from  the  plane  of  sense  and 
into  the  plane  of  soul ;  lives  are  too  apt  to  be  spent 
in  the  sense-plane,  and  never  ascend  into  the 
soul-plane.  We  live  in  the  wrong  spiritual  lati- 
tude or  altitude.  This  all  comes  about  in  the 
most  natural  way;  our  minds  run  with  our  senses 
from  childhood,  and  we  come  to  a  knowledge  of 
ourselves  by  touch,  sight,  hearing,  smelling  and 
tasting;  on  attaining  maturer  years,  there  comes  a 
time  when  we  declare  independence  of  the  merely 
sensuous,  and  we  look  for  the  realities  which  en- 
dure uninterrupted  by  sorrow,  anger  or  fear;  the 
real  man  comes  to  know  that  his  mind  is  the  ally 
of  his  soul,  and  that  the  sense-plane  and  the  sense- 
world  are  inimical  to  his  highest  self;  he  finds  that 
the  soul  is  the  only  lasting  part  of  himself,  and  so 
each  for  himself,  discovers  himself.  When  we 
have  made  the  great  revealment  of  our  true 
selves  to  ourselves,  then  we  can  say,  as  Chrysos- 
tom  said  to  the  Emperor,  ''You  cannot  rob  me  of 


SOUL  PLANE  141 

my  goods,  because  my  treasure  is  in  heaven; 
nor  can  you  exile  me,  because  my  fatherland  is 
above. '*  We  can  also  attain  a  sane  and  a  gra- 
cious outlook  upon  life.  This  soul-plane  of  exis- 
tence was  clearly  pointed  out  by  Professor  Fiske, 
when  he  said  that  God  wasn't  making  stars  and 
comets  now,  but  souls.  "  The  glorious  consumma- 
tion towards  which  evolution  is  tending  is  the 
production  of  the  highest  and  most  perfect  psy- 
chical life."  "I  can  see  no  insuperable  difficulty 
in  the  notion  that  at  some  period  in  the  evolution 
of  humanity,  that  the  divine  spark  may  not  have 
acquired  sufficient  concentration  and  steadiness 
to  survive  the  wreck  of  material  forms  and  endure 
forever.''  One  who  sadly  said,  "You  can't 
prove  that  we  live  in  the  hereafter,"  was  pleased 
with  the  reply,  "No,  I  can't  prove  it,  but  you 
can't  prove  that  we  don't."  It  is  only  by  the 
growing  of  strong  souls,  and  by  achieving  the  soul- 
plane,  in  ways  that  are  near  at  hand  and  very 
simple,  we  can  drink  from  our  Amazon,  bathe  in 
Jordan,  and  come  to  the  cheer  which  our  religion 
offers.  We  can  acquire  a  wise  indifference  to  the 
transient,  we  can  live  unworried  by  the  present 
because  confident  of  the  eternal.  We  can  be 
happy-tempered  bringers  of  the  best  out  of  the 
worst;  who  bear  what's  past  cure,  and  so  put 


142         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

a  good  face  on't,  wisely  passive  where  action's 
fruitless."  We  can  comprehend  Stevenson's 
phrase,  "It  is  better  to  travel  hopefully,  than 
to  arrive. "  We  can  try  to  imitate  the  old  Vene- 
tian sun-dial, 

"  Horas  non  numero  nisi  serenas." 

"You  do  not  know,"  says  Charles  Kingsley, 
"half — no,  not  the  thousandth  part  of  God's 
mercy  to  you;  so  do  not  be  afraid  of  being  happy, 
nor  think  that  you  honor  God  by  wearing  a  long 
face  when  He  is  heaping  blessings  on  you,  and 
asking  you  to  smile  and  sing."  The  exaltation 
of  the  soul-plane  is  reached,  and  happiness,  true 
happiness  is  found  by  the  little  things  near  at 
hand. 

"Teach  us  delight  in  simple  things, 
And  mirth  that  hath  no  bitter  springs. " 

Christianity  was  the  first  religion  to  give  to 
humanity  the  key  to  happiness,  peace  and  God's 
rest.  It  lifts  man  above  the  sense-plane  and  into 
the  soul-plane,  and  this  is  attainable  by  "whoso- 
ever will. "  The  winning  of  the  higher  state  of 
man's  soul,  means  a  hard  conflict  with  adverse 
powers.  The  fight  begins  the  moment  the  man 
feels  that  he  is  ensouled.  The  contest  is  against 
his  lower  nature.    The  power  to  become  Sons 


MAKES  SONS  OF  GOD  143 

of  God,  was  offered  to  as  many  as  believed  on 
Him.  The  man  is  free  to  choose  or  to  reject. 
His  will  and  wish  is  the  antecedent.  His  final 
blessedness  is  conditioned  on  his  striving,  and  this 
is  recognized  by  oriental  and  occidental  leaders  of 
thought.  Kang  Yo  Wei  and  Goethe  agree,  and 
the  latter's  words  were,  ''Not  all  men  are  im- 
mortal, because  some  men  will  not  strive. "  The 
soul-plane  is  to  be  attained  only  by  the  travail 
of  each  individual  soul,  and  this  travail  can  be 
done  happily  with  the  sure  end  of  peace  as  goal. 
Thus  is  answered  the  riddle  ''Cui  Bonof'^ 
" What  profiteth  it? "  "What  is  the  World  for? " 
Nations  which  answered  the  riddle  wrongly,  and 
elected  to  live  in  the  sense-plane,  became,  slowly 
but  surely,  moribund  and  decadent;  the  world 
religions,  other  than  Christianity,  failed  to  attain 
the  soul-plane  of  peace;  the  philosophies,  the 
schools,  the  inconsistent  scientists,  all  have  trended 
more  or  less  immediately  towards  pessimism,  and 
so  they  all  prove  themselves  unable  to  give  a 
satisfactory  answer  to  the  world^s  riddle.  But 
Christianity  produces  civilization,  and  shows  its 
power  in  the  individual,  the  family  and  the  nation, 
in  that  it  makes  answer  to  the  question  "Cm 
Bono?  ^^hy  saying  that  the  world  is  for  the  making 
of  souls;  and  it  shows  man  how  to  raise  himself 


144         CHRISTIANITY  TRANSCENDENT 

above  the  sense-plane  and  into  the  soul-plane. 
Its  methods  for  making  souls  are  obedience, 
prayer,  consecration;  it  trains  the  soul's  eye  to 
see  God  and  tunes  the  soul's  ear  to  hear  God's 
voice;  it  tells  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it;  it  gives 
to  men  a  reasonable,  holy  and  living  hope  in  the 
world  by  removing  all  fear,  and  giving  uplift, 
cheer  and  hope;  it  shows  that  God  cares.  The 
road  for  the  non-Christian  is  a  true  via  dolorosaj 
but  to  the  Christian,  it  is  the  road  the  Master 
trod.  Christians  alone  can  comprehend  a  union 
of  the  human  with  the  divine;  they  can,  in  some 
measure,  unify  God  and  man;  they  can  reach  the 
high  soul-plane  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  di- 
vine life.  Of  such  souls,  Stopford  Brooke  wrote 
— "Who  gets  out  of  self,  and  into  God — of  him, 
men  and  angels  say,  'He  is  not  here,  he  is  risen.'  " 
For  souls  there  are  no  time  relations,  nor  boun- 
daries as  we  now  understand  them.  For  souls, 
as  Longfellow  wrote,  there  is  no  death,  "What 
seems  so  is  transition. "  Death  is  not  a  departure, 
but  an  arrival.  Paul  spoke  of  it  as  a  time  for 
his  immooring.  It  is  an  "Home  Coming,"  as 
emigrants  sailing  to  their  El  Dorado:  and  some 
of  the  family  have  gone  on  before,  and  will  be 
waiting  for  the  incoming  ship. 
This    then    is    Christianity's    answer    to    the 


THE  PEACE  BRINGER  145 

World's  Riddle,  "Cm  Bonof'  namely,  that  the 
world  exists  for  the  evolution  of  a  soul  aristoc- 
racy: a  training  of  souls  to  live  on  the  highest 
plane,  the  divine  soul-plane,  as  Sons  of  God, 
Whose  children,  more  or  less  obedient,  we  all  are. 

"  He  led  us  on 

By  paths  we  did  not  know; 

Upwards  He  led  us,  though  our  steps  were  slow, 

Though  oft  we'd  faint  and  falter  on  the  way, 

Though  storms  and  darkness  oft  obscured  the  day, 

Yet,  when  the  clouds  were  gone. 

We  saw  He  led  us  on." 

"He  leads  us  on 

Through  all  th'  unquiet  years. 

Past  all  our  dreamland  hopes  and  doubts  and  fears 

He  guides  our  steps;  through  all  the  tangled  maze 

Of  sin,  and  sorrow,  and  o'er-clouded  days 

We  know  His  will  is  done 

And  still  He  leads  us  on." 

"And  He  at  last. 

After  the  weary  strife, 

After  the  restless  fever  we  call  life, 

After  the  dreariness,  the  aching  pain. 

The  wayward  struggles  which  have  proved  in  vain, 

After  all  our  toil  is  past, 

Will  give  us  peace  at  last. " 


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